Mr. Kewal Bista, Deputy Director, Trade & Export Promotion Centre, Ministry of Commerce, Government of Nepal along with a delegation visited the World Trade Centre with a view to explore opportunities of increasing bilateral trade between India and Nepal. An interactive meeting was organized on this occasion with senior officials of the Centre on July 14, 2017. Mr. Bista said, “India is a huge market of 1.3 billion people. We would like to explore market opportunities for products from Nepal in agriculture and forestry, handloom, textiles and other sectors. There are 75 districts in Nepal and 92 Chambers of Commerce representing various sectors. We would like to strengthen bilateral trade and investment co-operation between Nepal and India by connecting these Chambers of Commerce with World Trade Centre Mumbai. We are also studying how the newly introduced Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime in India will affect the tax incidence on goods imported from Nepal”.

During the interactive meeting, World Trade Centre Mumbai assured all support to the Trade & Export Promotion Centre, Ministry of Commerce, Government of Nepal for strengthening bilateral partnership between both countries.

Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Y. R. Warerkar, Executive Director, World Trade Centre Mumbai said, ”India’s annual bilateral trade with Nepal currently stands around USD 5.84 billion. There is tremendous scope to enhance this trade volume through co-operation between traders and business communities of both countries. The first step toward this is to understand the sectoral strengths of one another and initiate trade facilitation measures. The business community in Nepal must also familiarize itself with the recently introduced Goods and Services Tax regime in India. WTC Mumbai is willing to promote bilateral trade by facilitating exhibition of products from Nepal in India, connecting small and medium enterprises from Nepal with their business partners in India, exchanging business delegations and other trade promotion initiatives. We invite business delegations from Nepal to participate in our flagship event Global Economic Summit, the next edition of which is planned for February 2018. The Summit will provide networking opportunities with businessmen and diplomats from nearly 25-30 countries.”

In Photo: Mr. Y. R. Warerkar, Executive Director, World Trade Centre Mumbai (left) felicitating Mr. Kewal Bista, Deputy Director, Trade & Export Promotion Centre, Ministry of Commerce, Government of Nepal (Centre). Also seen are accompanying delegation members.