HEADLINE NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Nepal-India trade consultation
Officials to assess treaty implementation

BY KEDAR BHATTARAI

Kathmandu, July 30: Commerce Secretaries from Nepal and India are meeting Wednesday in Kathmandu to evaluate the bilateral trade treaty between the two countries.

The regular meeting that is taking place five months before Nepal-India trade treaty completes its five years of enforcement is seen with special importance by both the countries although it has a provision of an automatic renewal in every five years.

The treaty has a provision of an automatic renewal unless one of the parties gives a written notice to another party for the non-renewal three months in advance of expiry.

Commerce Ministry’s Joint Secretary Purushottam Ojha, however, maintained that the meeting was being held in Kathmandu according to the provision of regular bilateral meetings in the treaty to solve the problems that surface in the process of its implementation. The last regular meeting was held in 1999 in New Delhi, India.

Indian commerce joint secretaries are arriving to Kathmandu on Tuesday to take part in the meeting while Indian Commerce Secretary Prabir Sen Gupta will arrive on Wednesday to lead the delegation. The Nepalese side will be led by Commerce Secretary Bhanu Prasad Acharya.

The main objective of the meeting is to review the implementation of the treaty and its provisions. However, both the sides seem determined to raise specific agenda.

Joint Secretary Ojha who is also the director of Nepal Multi-modal Transit and Trade Felicitation said Nepal would emphasise the issue of railroad agreement.

The two countries have yet to agree on the issue despite Nepal’s proposing for the agreement with India in the past. Nepal has been unable to operate Asian Development Bank aided dry port in Birgunj in absence of the railroad facility. Experts are little hopeful that the two countries will reach an agreement although the operation of the dry port has already been delayed by five months.

Besides, Nepal will demand with the Indian delegation for duty free access of Nepalese goods – except some banned items - in the Indian market, one of the provisions of the treaty. Nepalese industrialists and businessmen maintain that India has been discouraging the free flow of Nepalese goods by raising the issues of quality and quarantine check although it has not charged duty on them.

Indian side has maintained that excessive import of a few Nepalese goods has posed a threat to those industries and has proposed up to 30 per cent value addition on Nepalese imports.

The joint economic forum of Nepal’s Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry and India’a Confederation of Indian Industries had agreed about value addition issue some time ago following a meeting in India. Nepalese industrialists and businessmen however have showed reservations about the agreement. FNCCI’s former president Pashupati Giri today issued a press release asking the private sector body to review the agreement.

FNCCI’s second vice-president Rajendra Kumar Khetan maintained the apex private sector bodies had not taken a decision on the issue although they reached an agreement. "The government has said this issue will not be under discussion in the secretary level talks," said Khetan. "And it will not affect the renewal of the treaty which is purely a government level agreement."

FNCCI President Rabi Bhakta Shrestha said the meeting should address the problems in such a way that it will not affect Nepal’s export trade.

FNCCI’s former president and joint economic forum’s member Padma Jyoti said the treaty had harmed neither of the nations and opined for its continuation.

Nepal Chamber of Commerce has submitted a report to Commerce Ministry which says smooth implementation of Nepal-India trade treaty is more a matter of bilateral relations and political situations than its provisions. The two neighbours enjoy good relations at present.

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