OREANDA-NEWS. August 11, 2014. China has expressed its commitment to support Nepal for hydropower and infrastructure development.

During a meeting with Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat in Beijing on Thursday, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei expressed China?s readiness to extend support for hydropower and infrastructure development. The two countries have agreed to work out the details of investment and financial assistance after activating Nepal-China inter-governmental mechanism.

Finance Minister Mahat, who reached Beijing at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, had held bilateral talks on Thursday. He had later held a meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng. While policy-level decisions are taken by the finance ministry, project formulation and implementation is overseen by the commerce ministry in China.

During the meeting between two finance ministers, Nepal and China had reviewed economic cooperation, while China agreed to make additional investments in Nepal, according to Mahat. “Both the Chinese government and the private sector have been asked to invest in hydropower and infrastructure development in Nepal. The Chinese government has also expressed commitment to increase assistance to Nepal,” Mahat told Republica over telephone.
Mahat argued that the achievement of goodwill visit should not be evaluated in monetary terms. “Various issues, including the effectiveness of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, problems seen in China-funded projects in Nepal and ways to reduce trade deficit with China were discussed during the meeting,” he said.

The Nepali delegation led by Mahat includes Joint Secretary at Finance Ministry Madhu Marasini and Nepal?s ambassador to China Mahesh Maskey. Both the meetings that lasted one hour each were focused on Chinese assistance for hydropower and infrastructure development and formation of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.