luodan
Xinhua
At a meeting on Friday at the Department of Agriculture, the concerned authorities discussed the effective implementation of the MoU and convenient ways to make the Nepali fruit available in the Chinese market.
Nepal is preparing to export orange to neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China.
Chief of National Plant Quarantine Program Ishwor Rijal told Xinhua that all preparation for the shipment of orange to Tibet has been made.
The trade will begin in October under the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Nepal and TAR in Lhasa early this month, Rijal said.
At a meeting on Friday at the Department of Agriculture, the concerned authorities discussed the effective implementation of the MoU and convenient ways to make the Nepali fruit available in the Chinese market.
“We have set target to export 100 tons of sweet orange and 1, 000 tons of orange in the initial phase,” Rijal said.
In the first phase, the Nepali government plans to export the citrus fruit produced in Syangja and Sindhuli in central Nepal.
Syangja produces the best quality orange in Nepal. According to the data provided in the previous fiscal year, the district alone produced more than 11,000 tons of orange. Similarly, Sindhuli produces the best sweet orange in Nepal.
This is the first time Nepal received the facility under the Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2004.
As a member of the WTO, Nepal can export its production to the international market while abiding by the regulations of WTO in terms of quality.
Nepal was unable to explore its potentialities owing to lack of proper infrastructure for storage and quarantine. China has pledged to help Nepal in solving quarantine problem.
Likewise, the second meeting of the Nepal-China’s Tibet Trade Facilitation Committee (NTTFC) held in Nepal in May has already agreed to remove procedural hurdles in the enforcement of zero- tariff and to activate local-level working groups to eliminate non- tariff barriers.
The Department of Agriculture has also started preparation to export banana, mango, seasonal and off-season vegetables, said Rijal.
While Nepal had largely failed to make use of the facility of duty free access of various Nepali products to China, Nepal was suffering huge trade deficit in bilateral trade between the two countries.
According to the Trade and Export Promotion Centre, Nepal’s trade deficit with China reached 429 million U.S. dollars in 2009- 10.
