Kathmandu, 10 November: The commerce treaty with India has automatically been renewed. Although Nepal has been raising the issue for a long time that the treaty should be renewed with amendments, it was finally renewed without amendments.
Ramchandra Tiwari, joint secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Supplies, informed that the trade agreement with India has been automatically renewed. It has been automatically renewed according to the provisions of the treaty, which must be renewed every seven years. Although the issue of revision and review of the treaty is being raised by Nepal, it did not happen this time, but it can be revised in between,” he said.
“We are preparing for a joint secretary of commerce meeting of the two countries. This topic can be raised even then”, said Tiwari.
While mentioning that the transit treaty between Nepal and India was amended in the past, Joint Secretary Tiwari said that the commerce treaty should also be amended in the same concept.
The commercial treaty held between Nepal and India in 1978 was last renewed in October 2016 (2073 Kattik). The treaty, which should be renewed every seven years, had not been amended before.
Since India is Nepal’s largest foreign trade partner, the largest trade deficit is with India. The need to review trade agreements to reduce such trade deficits has long been mooted.
Former Secretary of Commerce Chandrakumar Ghimire said that since this treaty has not been revised and amended for a long time, Nepal has faced various problems in the field of foreign trade. He said that although Nepal started the process for the renewal of the treaty in 2018, it was not completed and stopped midway, and it is not in the interest of Nepal to renew the treaty without amendment.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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