Kathmandu, May 9

Nepal and Vietnam are set to ink a bilateral Air Services Agreement (ASA) during Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s visit to the Southeast Asian nation, which began today.

PM Oli left on a week-long official visit to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and to the Kingdom of Cambodia early this morning.

Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, joint secretary at MoCTCA, said that though a negligible number of tourists from Vietnam visit Nepal every year, the government has been signing ASAs with different countries in a bid to promote the country’s tourism sector aggressively after the Gautam Buddha International Airport starts operations.

“The construction of GBIA will be completed in the near future and we need to enhance our air connectivity with different countries accordingly. As soon as the construction of GBIA is over, we will be able to see the prospects of air connectivity with different countries with which Nepal has signed ASA,” said Lamichhane.

As per him, the government expects that at least two flights a week can be conducted between Nepal and Vietnam after GBIA comes into operation.

Along with Vietnam, the government is also preparing to ink ASA with three other countries, namely the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Thailand in the future.

Prior to this, government had signed ASA with Cambodia in December. Nepal has signed such pacts with 39 countries so far already. However, the national flag carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation, has not been able to expand its international connectivity accordingly as it is currently flying to only eight international destinations in six countries.

This has also raised questions on the rationale behind inking ASA with many countries if Nepal cannot operate flights to those destinations.