KATHMANDU: President Bidya Devi Bhandari is flying to Bangladesh on a two-day state visit beginning today.
People of Nepal and Bangladesh are observing with excitement this visit taking place at the Head-of-State level for the first time after Nepal’s adoption of the federal democratic-republican political system.
The visit is observed with keen interest as it is hoped toward broadening the diplomatic scope of Nepal and further deepening the political, cultural, economic and people-level relations between the two South Asian neighbors.
Three separate memorandums of understanding (MoU) on tourism promotion, sanitary and phytosanitary measures are to be signed between the two countries in course of the President’s visit.
The Government of Bangladesh has provided Nepal transit facility through the Kakadbhitta-Phulbari-Banglabandh roadway as well as at the Chittagong and Mongla seaports.
It has also made available an additional ‘rail corridor’ for the operation of a freight train from Rohanpur-Singhabad to Nepal, and it has opened the way for Nepal to use the Mongla harbor as an option to the Kolkata port.
Since Mongla port is nearer to Kolkata port, it will help expand bilateral trade at a comparatively lesser cost for Nepal. It is 217 kilometers from Mongla port to the integrated check post at Biratnagar and 600 kilometers to the integrated checkpoint at Birgunj of Nepal.
Nepal can reap long-term benefits if it utilized this visit as an opportunity to strongly present its agenda, focusing especially on removing customs and non-customs barriers that are hindering the expansion of bilateral trade, on decreasing the high customs tariff, on reaching Nepali products to the Bangladeshi market via surface road, on securing extra scholarship quotas for Nepali students who are mostly attracted to medical science faculties and on resolving issues they have been facing including the visa problem.
President Bhandari’s visit would be helpful not only in further deepening the mutual cordial relation subsisting at the people’s level but also in promoting trade and commerce through the broader connectivity network linking both countries by air, water and surface ways, and by facilitating trade, transit and commerce with the provision of providing unhindered accessibility to Nepali vehicles carrying goods and passengers to Chittagong and Mongla ports.
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