MoI to send opinion on China's BIPPA proposal within a month

KATHMANDU, Oct 28:

The Ministry of Industry is making necessary preparations for signing Bilateral Investment and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) with China.

After holding several rounds of meetings with experts, ministry officials are busy preparing comments on the proposal for BIPPA forwarded by China.

MoI had received the proposal from China via Ministry of Foreign Affairs some 16 months ago.

Mishnu Parsad Dhakal, deputy spokesperson of MoI, said the ministry was at the final stage of sending the draft agreement to China. "The draft has clauses similar to the BIPPA signed with India," added Dhakal.

The agreement is said to encourage Chinese investors to put their money into different projects in Nepal.

China had proposed Nepal to sign BIPPA in 2012 ahead of the then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao´s vist to Nepal.

After returning from a visit to China last week, Minister for Home Affairs Bamdev Gautam had said that the northern neighbor wants to sign BIPPA with Nepal.

“We held series of meetings over the past three months to discuss on the BIPPA proposal forwarded by China," Dhakal said. "We will send the revised document to China through the foreign ministry within a month."

Nepal and India signed BIPPA in 2011. But the agreement is yet to be implemented. Preparations are on to table the agreement in the parliament for approval.

Nepal has signed BIPPA with six countries -- France, Germany, Mauritius, UK, Finland and India -- so far. BIPPA includes legal instruments specifying rights and obligations to meet the primary purpose of protecting foreign investments against discriminatory measures by the host country. Countries enter into such agreement for encouraging capital flow along with the commitments from the foreign countries.

Source: Republica