The Treaty of Commerce with India has been automatically renewed. Although Nepal had been calling for renewing the treaty with amendments for a long, ultimately it was automatically renewed without any amendment.
Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, Ram Chandra Tiwari, said the commerce treaty with India has been automatically renewed in accordance with the provision stipulating that the treaty has to be renewed every seven years.
"Although the topic of amending and revising the treaty had been raised, it could not be addressed this time. However, it can be amended in between. We are preparing for the Commerce Secretary level meeting of the two countries and this issue can also be raised at that time," Joint Secretary Tiwari said.
Stating that the Transit Treaty between Nepal and India had been amended in between, he said the Treaty of Commerce could also be amended in the middle in keeping with this concept.
The Treaty of Commerce which was inked in 1978 was last amended in October 2016. The treaty is renewed every seven years and it was not amended last time. It drew criticism from the trade and commerce experts and business community at that time also after the treaty was renewed without any amendment.
India is Nepal's largest foreign trade partner and so Nepal has a huge trade deficit with India. The topic of amending the commerce treaty has been coming up for a long time to address this trade deficit problem.
Former Commerce Secretary Chandra Kumar Ghimire said that Nepal is facing various problems in the foreign trade sector as this treaty remains to be amended or revised for a long.
Ghimire said Nepal had initiated the process for amending the treaty in 2018, but it was stopped in the middle, and the treaty has been automatically renewed this time also without any amendments, which is not in Nepal's interest.
"Nepal should have opted for a new treaty, concluding the negotiations with India at the earliest. This not happening is not in our national interest," the former Commerce Secretary said, adding that the talks between all bilateral mechanisms is on hold since the last one or two years.
According to him, the talks should not have been put on hold like this and it shows that we are not ourselves aware on this.
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