Nepal identifies three potential projects for Chinese assistance

Nepalese officials have identified three potential infrastructure projects to be implemented with the assistance of China. The projects discussed by officials yesterday include a cross-border railway project connecting Chinese bordering town Kerung with Nepalese capital Kathmandu, electricity transmission line connecting Kerung with Nepalese Dhading district, a neighbouring district of Kathmandu and the Sunsari-Marin diversion irrigation project in eastern Nepal, according to a statement of Nepal’s finance ministry. During a meeting of the project development and facilitation committee to implement the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Nepal and China, officials from ministries including finance, physical infrastructure and transport, energy, irrigation, urban development, agriculture and tourism discussed these projects. “Although we have identified these as potential projects to be implemented with the Chinese assistance, we have not finalised them yet,” Yugraj Pandey, undersecretary at Nepal’s ministry of finance, told Xinhua. At the meeting, finance secretary Shankar Prasad Adhikari urged officials from other ministries to submit the potential projects which are ready for implementation within the next five days. “A consensus reached among the officials is that the finance ministry will propose the projects to the Chinese government based on national priority and necessity of the country,” the ministry said in the statement. Also at the meeting, economic adviser to Nepal prime minister Gyan Chandra Acharya urged the ministries to propose projects that could promote connectivity with productivity so as to reap as much as benefit from the projects. A cabinet meeting of the Nepal government on August 15 also asked the energy ministry to seek the Chinese support to build reservoir projects and transmission lines.