Nepal PM Deuba meets senior US official Lu, seeks higher economic engagements

I thanked the US for its continued development cooperation and look forward to a higher level of economic engagements, Prime Minister Deuba tweeted.This is Lus second visit to Nepal since November last year and first since Nepals Parliament ratified the USD 500 million Millenium Challenge Corporation MCC agreement after months-long controversy.


PTI | Kathmandu | Updated: 29-07-2022 19:19 IST | Created: 29-07-2022 19:19 IST
Nepal PM Deuba meets senior US official Lu, seeks higher economic engagements
  • Country:
  • Nepal

Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Friday said he looks forward to a ''higher level of economic engagements'' with the US as he met senior American official Donald Lu, who played a crucial role in the passage of the US-funded USD 500 million grant agreement.

Lu, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald, arrived in Kathmandu on Thursday on a two-day visit to Nepal.

"It was a pleasure to receive @state_SCA HE Donald Lu this afternoon and exchange views on friendly and cooperative Nepal-US relations. I thanked the US for its continued development cooperation and look forward to a higher level of economic engagements," Prime Minister Deuba tweeted.

This is Lu's second visit to Nepal since November last year and first since Nepal's Parliament ratified the USD 500 million Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement after months-long controversy. In February, Parliament ratified the MCC pact after weeks of haggling among the political parties.

Nepal and the US signed the MCC agreement in 2017. However, it had become a hotly-debated political issue in Nepal, with some parties objecting to it on grounds that the US programme is part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy and its parliamentary ratification would be against Nepal's national interest. Washington had made it clear that the MCC pact did not fall under the US government's Indo-Pacific Strategy.

Earlier in the day, Lu also met Foreign Minister Dr Narayan Khadka.

During the meeting, the two leaders ''discussed various areas of engagements, including development cooperation, economic support, food security and COVID–19 vaccines," the Foreign Ministry tweeted.

Sharing photographs of both the meetings, the US Embassy in Kathmandu tweeted that Lu met Deuba and Khadka ''to discuss a range of issues, including our 75 years of US-Nepal partnership and our strong people-to-people ties''.

Lu's Nepal visit assumes significance in the wake of China stepping up its forays into Nepal through various infrastructure ventures, including the trans-Himalayan connectivity projects, under Beijing's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

China launched the BRI in 2013 to fund infrastructure projects across the world, taking advantage of its USD 3.21 trillion forex reserves to further Beijing's global influence.

According to the US State Department website, America and Nepal established diplomatic relations in 1948.

''Bilateral relations are friendly,'' it noted, underlining that primary US objectives in Nepal include helping the country become ''more self-reliant, independent, and resilient as it confronts global challenges''.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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