Mumbai: The friendship between Nepal and China is getting cracked because China has imposed undisclosed blockage on goods coming from Nepal under the guise of Corona. For the last 10 months, 1200 containers of Nepal have been stranded on the Tibet border. Nepalese businessman Ram Paudel committed suicide due to the blockage.
According to the family, Ram had taken a loan of two crores, he was unable to pay the installment due to the goods getting stuck. A highly placed official posted in Nepal’s finance ministry said Chinese custom officials are also not accepting the RT-PCR test of the corona of Nepalese workers in general.
So, we are discouraging traders to bring goods by land route. We are asking them to bring goods via Kolkata Port. Because, we are not getting cooperation from China. We have been told that the goods will go forward after the corona is over.
According to customs officials, there are also containers of woolen clothes in the stranded containers on Tibet border. These goods are stuck in Tibet’s capital Lhasa, Shigatse, Nyalam, Kerung etc. According to Nepalese traders, the value of stranded goods in the cities of Tibet is more than INR 1300 crores. The Finance Ministry official says that this is China’s undisclosed blockage, because supplies cannot be stopped even in an emergency. At the same time, traders have to bribe Chinese customs agents to send the goods, if not, the Chinese agent does not send the goods.
In terms of trade, Nepal has two border points with China, Rasuwagadi-Kerung and Tatopani-Khasa. Tatopani is the old point. It was closed after the 2015 earthquake, but opened after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nepal last year. Kerung-Rasuwagadi has been developed by China as an international border point. China is allowing only 5 containers from Nepal via Kerung and 2 containers through Tatopani-Khasa.
Earlier, 30 to 40 containers of goods were used daily. China had verbally agreed to open 13 border points between Nepal and China. But China did not make import / export easy even on two borders. Punya Bikram Khadke, a Nepali customs officer posted at Rasuvagadi, says that big traders have shipped goods from Chinese cities to India’s Kolkata port. Goods could return from China to Nepal via Kolkata Port in 35 days. We expected to generate revenue of crores of rupees this year, but till now we could not even touch the 100 crores level.
Lal Bahadur Khatri, customs officer at the Tatopani border, says about 800 containers from this route are stuck in the Tibetan side. Custom officials have built a separate yard to receive containers from China. Nepali workers have been deployed here. They are equipped with health protocols. But Chinese officials are reluctant to send containers, fearing Covid.