Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Kathmandu on a 3-day visit on December 26, 2014, at the head of a 7-member delegation. He is expected to convey that Nepal features prominently in China’s “peripheral diplomacy”.
Wang Yi left for Nagarkot for sightseeing after lunching at Hotel Dwarika. In Nagarkot he stayed at Club Himalaya.
Wang Yi met his Nepali counterpart Mahendra Bahadur Pandey on Friday morning to review bilateral relations and discuss more Chinese investment in Nepal’s infrastructure and energy sectors and the preparations to celebrate the 60th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries next year.
He handed over medical equipment worth Rs 200 million to the Civil Hospital and laid the foundation stone of the China-funded Armed Police Force Academy at Balambu that will cost over Rs 3 billion. There was a possibility that a memorandum of understanding on China’s new annual aid commitment to Nepal worth 800 million yuans, more than five times the current 150 million yuans, would be signed.
Wang Yi, the first senior-level Chinese official to visit Nepal after the election of the Constituent Assembly last year, was to convey to Nepali leaders, officials, intellectuals and policy makers about the foreign policy of the new Chinese leadership, particularly President Xi’s vision about China’s neighbourhood policy on December 26. Wang Yi was also scheduled to meet President Ram Baran Yadav and Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. He met other political leaders during a luncheon hosted by Foreign Minister Pandey and a reception by Chinese Ambassador Wu Chuntai separately on December 26.
During a recent meeting in Beijing, senior Chinese officials had informed Nepali Ambassador to China Mahesh Maskey about President Xi’s possible visit to Nepal next year.
|
