China’s Foreign Minister on Friday announced his country’s increased support to Nepal for the latter’s socio-economic development.
During the talks between the delegations led by the respective Foreign Ministers, Mahendra Bahadur Pandey of Nepal and China’s Wang Yi, China named several areas for cooperation between the two neighbours. The grant has been scaled to 80 million Chinese yuan from its current 15 million yuan.
This was announced at a joint press conference held soon after the bilateral talks concluded. The foreign ministers said they would enhance the cooperation between the two countries.
China has expressed its support to help Nepal in areas including trade, investment, infrastructure development, increasing energy generation from hydropower, agriculture, tourism promotion, science and technology, and law and order.
The Chinese Foreign Minister also said his country was willing to provide all the help needed by Nepal in graduating from the least developed country (LDC) status to a developed one by the target year of 2022.
Answering a question, Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pandey said that the two sides discussed how to make China’s role more active in SAARC. China has a status of Observer in the regional grouping. During the recent SAARC Summit in Kathmandu, India shot down any increased role – as suggested by Nepal and Pakistan – for China in SAARC.
Mr. Wang said his countries relation with India was improving and expressed the hope that it would attain new heights in future, adding that Nepal has a role in strengthening the ties between the neighbours.
“Nepal can become bridge not just between China and India but also for the entire South Asia,” the Chinese minister said.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Wang handed over medical equipment worth NRs 200 million to a hospital that China helped build in the capital.