Standard Chartered Belt and Road Relay

KATHMANDU: Standard Chartered Bank’s first ever global Belt and Road (B&R) Relay which runs across 44 markets within a 90-day period reached Kathmandu on Wednesday.

It kicked off in Hong Kong on February 17 in conjunction with the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon and will end in China. Standard Chartered Bank-Nepal employees joined the eight staff athletes selected from the bank’s diverse footprint in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe and the Americas in a five-kilometre run in Armed Police Force stadium, Halchowk, as per a media release.

Nepal is the 43rd market in the B&R Relay. Belt and Road Initiative is a development strategy adopted by the Chinese government that covers more than 60 countries to address infrastructure gap and accelerate economic growth. In 2017, Standard Chartered Bank committed additional financing for Belt and Road projects of at least $20 billion by 2020. On this same occasion, the athletes along with Standard Chartered Bank-Nepal Chief Executive Officer Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar also launched ‘Futuremakers by Standard Chartered’ for Nepal.