KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 2

A delegation led by President of Nepal-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI) Shreejana Rana met the newly appointed Finance Secretary Krishna Hari Pushkar at his office, in Singha Durbar today.

Other members in the delegation included NICCI Vice-President Sunil KC, NIC- CI VP Harkirat Singh Bedi, NICCI Secretary General Ramesh Sharma, Treasurer Kunal Kayal, Director General Keshab Man Singh and Deputy Director Marshal Rathour.

Congratulating Pushkar on his appointment, the delegation also briefed him about NICCI and the role played by NICCI to bring FDI from India.

The delegation also briefed him that India is the single largest trading partner of Nepal, with two-third of international trade of Nepal, 100 per cent transit affairs related to bilateral trade and 90 per cent transit affairs of third country are via India, 40 per cent FDI is from India, 20 per cent tourists are from India, not to mention most of the industrial and consumers imports are coming from India, and most of Nepal' exports are also going to India.

Above all now India is also becoming development and trading partner of electricity and NICCI is playing facilitator role on these activities since its establishment. 'NICCI is the only bilateral body playing role for the promotion of bilateral economic activities from private sector in Nepal.'

The team also informed Secretary Pushkar that to promote bilateral tourism between Nepal and India, NICCI is also handling the joint working group meeting.

Since NICCI is focusing and planning on bringing more FDI from India the team informed that NICCI is preparing for its mega flagship event Nepal-India Partnership Summit, in which, Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, Nepal Investment Board, both the embassies have agreed to be part of the summit and since Ministry of Finance is the main government agency working on the economic development of the country, NICCI also expressed interest for the ministry to join hands and extend support to this event and other programmes planned and organised in days ahead.

Newly appointed Finance Secretary Pushkar appreciated the work done by NICCI in the past as well as at present and assured that the Ministry of Finance will definitely consider NICCI as a major stakeholder in economic development as well as the major concerned body for bringing FDIs from India.

A version of this article appears in the print on September 3, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.