The officials of Nepal-India Chambers of Commerce & Industry (NICCI) and North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (NEDFi) discussed connectivity status and projects at a meeting held at the NICCI Secretariat, Naxal, Kathmandu.
According to a statement issued by NICI, in the meeting chaired by President of NICCI Shreejana Rana, she emphasized on the prospects and opportunities and challenges in trade in various sectors between the two countries. She said there is huge potential in connectivity projects including hydropower projects, infrastructure, SMEs-agriculture, tourism etc and the collaboration in such sectors could be beneficial to investors as well as the governments of both the countries.
Rajan Sharma, the convener of the Trade and Transit Committee, highlighted the issues related to trade and transit. He said, “At present, the custodian right of Nepali goods is in the hands of the Indian clearing agents. This is a big problem as the legal provisions shift the liability to the clearing agents and therefore, disputes arise as the clearing agents cannot claim money from the importers of Nepal and can always shift the problem. The provisions should be to involve the Nepali freight forwarders and hold them liable with agency cooperation between the Custom House Agent (CHA) and Nepali freight forwards. The electronic cargo tracking system between India and Nepal is of no use and involves at least INR 3400/- per container. This is too expensive and the Nepali importers should not be made to pay such charges for tracking the transit cargo within the Indian territory.”
Convener of the Energy Committee, Batu Lamichhane also highlighted the current status of power generation, and power trade status between Nepal and India. Lamichhane stated that Nepal has surplus energy during the wet season when it produces as much as 3339 MW (in year 2022) of which Nepal had a surplus of 1205 MW. He also said that in the last monsoon season, NEA exported 364 MW to India and that Nepal has plans to develop more than 10,000 MW of electricity by the next decade.
