KATHMANDU, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) — Nepal and China on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on bilateral exchange of information on the areas of consumers’ right protection.
The move is aimed at helping to create competitive market environment and more particularly, accentuate the trade relations between two neighbourly countries, Nepal’s Ministry of Supplies said, in a press release.
Visiting Chinese Minister of State Administration for Industry and Commerce Zhang Mao and Nepal’s Supply Minister Deepak Bohora signed the MoU at a function in Kathmandu.
According to Nepal’s Supply Ministry, the important areas of cooperation under the MoU, among others, include the mutual exchange of information on newly effected rules and regulations, hold consultation by high officials on the matters of common concerns routinely, information sharing on new practices of trade and commerce and periodic exchange visits by government officials, trade experts and consumers rights activists.
According to the Nepalese officials, the MoU has been signed to protect the consumers’ rights in the context that the consumers of two countries have been using goods of each other countries amid growing bilateral trade. In the last fiscal year 2015-16 that concluded in mid-July, China-Nepal bilateral trade stood at 1 billion U.S. dollars, according to Nepal’s central bank.
“Due to exchange of information in the field of consumers’ interest protection and contact between the officials on regular basis, the MoU will have a far reaching consequence,” said Zhang.
Nepal’s Supply Minister Bohora said that given the Chinese initiation on the connectivity, particularly through the construction of roads and railway networks along the border, the intensification of trade and investment between the two countries is imminent.
“For this, we timely pay our attention in the enforcement of rules and regulations including institutional strengthening to take care of the consumers’ interest protection,” he said.