Nepal's 2-day investment summit starts with high hopes

The third Investment Summit began here on Friday. The Government of Nepal is showcasing as many as 77 viable projects worth the US $ 31.93 billion in two-day summit.

"With India, we have duty free arrangements for most of our products, both primary and industrial goods while China has granted a significant number of our tariff lines duty free access to its market," Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said while addressing the inaugural session of the Summit.

"Modern alternative port has helped reduce hassle at crowded Kolkata-Haldia port. Digital tracking and transshipment systems, introduced recently, has eased the transportation process. A new transit route through the use of inland waterways is under progress," he said.

"This will not only provide an alternative transit route, but will also connect landlocked Nepal to the sea through the waterways," Prime Minister Oli informed the investors about the latest trade technique which Nepal has adopted with the help of India.

The two-day summit is being attended by foreign delegates from over 40 countries out of which 120 are from India and 265 from China.

The Himalayan nation was rattled by a strong earthquake of 7.9 Richter scale in the year of 2015. In a bid to rebuild the nation, the government at that time had organised an Investment Summit in 2017.

A total of US $ 13.51 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) was committed by participating nations at that time. India has solely committed a total of US $ 317 million for Nepal.