BRI can serve as a catalyst to realize Nepal’s prosperity agenda

Kathmandu,- Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said that unprecedented economic transformations taking place in neighbouring China and India offer huge opportunities for Nepal. Nepal cannot remain forever in the lower rung of the development ladder and we must climb the ladder, and climb at a faster pace but onus lies on us, to complement our national efforts by ensuring mutually beneficial cooperation with our neighbours.

The Prime Minister was speaking at International Conference on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): Opportunities and Implications for Nepal and the Region organized by Master’s Programme in International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tribhuvan University in the capital on Wednesday.

Terming the BRI, a visionary initiative, Oli said that it is an important step that aims at promoting connectivity and cooperation among the countries in the region and beyond. "BRI connects nearly two-thirds of world population which account for one-third of global GDP and trade. The transformative scale and scope of this initiative has opened up plethora of opportunities to integrate the economies, to connect the markets, and to invest in infrastructures," he said.

The BRI can serve as an important catalyst to realize Nepal’s prosperity agenda and can support countries like Nepal to grow and prosper at a greater speed by ensuring equitable benefits to us. The PM further said that as a framework to spur investment and enhance connectivity, BRI can be instrumental in addressing our development bottlenecks; in mobilizing finance our development needs; and in ensuring win-win cooperation.

 Saying that after the consolidation of political transformation of historic proportions, Nepal is now at an important juncture of undertaking socio-economic transformation and our key agenda is socio-economic development, PM Oli shared that the vision of the government is guided by the long-term goal of “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali”.  "To achieve this goal, we will have to ensure decent jobs and gainful employment for our working-age population, and modernize our agriculture," he added.

According to the PM, we will have to utilize our energy potentials especially in hydropower, and promote development of infrastructure, tourism and human resources but pointed out that Nepal’s development needs are manifold while the resources remain untapped and underutilized. The financing gap is conspicuous.

On the occasion, the Prime Minister said that the text of Protocol to Agreement on Transit Transport signed between Nepal and China some days ago provides Nepal access to all the Chinese sea ports and this move is an important milestone towards Nepal’s transformation from a landlocked to a land-linked country.