China hopes to be larger market for Nepal

Kathmandu, Jan 27 (IANS) China's Ambassador to Nepal Wu Chuntai has expressed hope that Nepal can find a larger market in China, no matter the country's young entrepreneurs, scholars or promising students.

"Our relation with Nepal is people-oriented as well as result-oriented. We wish to see political stability and economic prosperity and hope that the economic cooperation between our two countries will bring jobs and market opportunities in Nepal," Xinhua quoted Wu as saying at a celebration of the Chinese spring festival in Nepal Sunday.

The ambassador placed emphasis on the importance of strengthening bilateral relations between China and Nepal.

Summarising China's foreign policy on Nepal for the year 2014, Wu said China's policy was aimed at ensuring political stability and economic prosperity as well as creating employment and exploring market opportunities.

"This year, we hope that our bilateral relations will be like the spirit of the horse: always moving forward," Wu said at the event.

"I feel that China has a very successful story of economic and social development. We can set an example for many of our friends in the developing world," he added.

With several factors emerging as bottlenecks to Nepal's economic growth, the impoverished Himalayan nation is not capable of creating productive employment for all those entering the labour market.

Nepal's unemployment rate has reached almost 50 percent, showing a huge discrepancy between market trends, prospects and actual supply. Because of this, as many as 1,500 young Nepalis leave the country everyday.

Initially, the bulk of migrant workers were mainly unskilled labourers, but this trend has now shifted to include qualified professionals.

"The most serious issue facing the country right now is the problem of unemployment and large-scale brain drain. To stop this phenomenon, we need to bring rapid economic development to the country so that we can keep our educated manpower," Baburam Bhattarai, Nepal's former prime minister and current member of the new Constituent Assembly told Xinhua.