KATHMANDU, MARCH 20
Nepal-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI) welcomed the newly appointed Nepali Ambassador to India Shankar Sharma today at NICCI Secretariat.
Shreejana Rana welcomed Ambassador Sharma and briefed about the formation of NICCI in year 1993 with the objective of promotion and facilitation to Nepal-India investment and cooperation for the economic development of the country. Rana further informed Ambassador Sharma that NICCI has been working on Coffee Table Book and website for the promotion of Nepal-India Cross-border Religious Circuits and very soon it will be published and launched and she requested the ambassador for support on this as it is for the promotion of tourism of both the countries.
Secretary General RB Rauniar also shared the issues related to Nepal-India trade and transit in which Ambassador Sharma could play an important role to resolve some issues such as documents to be presented in customs on import via transshipment and via road transport where there is no uniformity, development of infrastructure in Indian side customs (especially at Panitanki customs). Another issue is to connect rail connectivity to Kathmandu from Birgunj which may cut down the logistics cost while importing goods.
Emphasising that hydropower is the sector where big investment could be attracted, Treasurer of NICCI Gyanendra Lal Pradhan urged Ambassador Sharma to look into this matter.
Vice-President of NICCI Sunil KC also briefed the newly appointed ambassador about the programmes being planned by NICCI like Partnership Summit to bring investors to Nepal as an annual event so as to develop Nepal as an investment destination like in the 90s era and Kathmandu-Kolkata Forum (K2K Forum) as to bring stakeholders from both the countries and discuss on issues so that the way forward could be identified, to establish Nepal-India Entrepreneurship Promotion Centre in Delhi so that start-ups from India and Nepal could connect and pave way for joint ventures, big investors from particular areas of India like Gujrat, Mumbai, Panjab, etc for the hydropower project development and power trading in India in PPP model so that the energy being produced in Nepal could be traded with India which could narrow down the trade deficit with the southern neighbour.
Saibal Ghosh, convener of Indian Business Forum and vice-president of NICCI, also shared his views that investing in Nepal is better compared to other countries due to low corporate tax and availability of cheap labour in the country though there are a few bottlenecks like repatriation, re-investment and IPR and trademark issues.
Ambassador Sharma thank the NICCI delegates for the programme and briefing him on the issues the he could focus on when he takes charge in India. He assured of possible support, especially for the programmes planned by the chamber like Partnership Summit, K2K Forum, Entrepreneurship Promotion Centre in Delhi and the Coffee Table Book.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 21, 2022, of The Himalayan Times
