Former Nepalese minister backs trilateral cooperation, says Xinhua

A former minister of Nepal S J B Rane is reported to have called for greater land connectivity between China, India and Nepal to raise to a new height regional cooperation between the neighbouring countries.

"Regional cooperation presupposes land connectivity in order to benefit from the economics of geography," Xinhua quoted former Nepalese finance minister Madhukar SJB Rana as saying in an interview.

Rana is also reported to have pointed out that the share of regional trade between India and Nepal hovered around only five per cent of their total trade.

"This is a sad reality, which can only be improved upon with land connectivity supplemented by trade facilitation measures boosting beyond border actions for the carriage and storage of exports and imports," Rana was quoted as saying.

Policy initiatives and resultant infrastructure projects targeted towards increasing land connectivity at bilateral, trilateral and sub-regional levels should help establish economic corridors as well, it was pointed out.

The idea is not to just simply establish "transport" corridors but "economic corridors". Economic corridors are broader in scope and entail physical planning of not just the corridor but the surrounding areas as well to attract businesses, special economic and industrial zones, says the Xinhua report.

"The purpose of economic corridors is to integrate the economies subregionally by creating growth triangles, quadrangles and so forth between two or more nations," Rana said.

Power equations and deficit of trust among shareholders remain significant factors acting as impediments to greater trans-Himalayan connectivity.