Nepali stakeholders approve 2022 plans to boost trade, coffee and pashmina sectors

• EU-Nepal TIP technical committee pleased with progress made in building trade capacity and developing pashmina value chain, despite COVID lockdowns
• Committee takes stock of challenges and discusses measures to tackle them
• Workplan for first half 2022 approved

(8 November, Kathmandu) Government agencies and trade support institutions working with the International Trade Centre’s EU-Nepal Trade and Investment Programme, funded by the European Union, have agreed on a workplan to continue enhancing trade-related capacities of the private and the public sectors and improve the value chains of Nepal’s coffee and pashmina sectors.

Members of the project’s technical committee unanimously agreed to the project’s proposed workplan for the first half in 2022. The meeting was chaired by Gobinda Bahadur Karkee, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MoICS).

Representatives from the Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC), Nepal Tea and Coffee Development Board, Nepal Coffee Producers’ Association (NCPA), Nepali Pashmina Industry Association (NPIA), and project staff based in Geneva assessed the progress made so far in the four-year project, now in its second year, and challenges faced:

• The committee hoped that coffee-related activities would gather pace with COVID-19 restrictions lifted.
• NCPA suggests the project to facilitate the association’s participation in international trade fairs.
• NPIA, which recently collected more than two tonnes of pashmina fiber from Chyangra farmers in Mustang, requested the government to help process the fiber.
• NPIA also requested the government to facilitate the entry of foreign consultants in pashmina farming areas.
• NTCBD suggested the project to incorporate more activities for improving the production of coffee in Nepal.

Quotes

“We are glad to announce that the project’s workplan for the first half of 2022 has been approved by the technical committee. The government shall look into issues and challenges faced by the stakeholders in course of the project’s implementation.”
Gobinda Bahadur Karkee, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MoICS)

“We would like to thank the government and other stakeholders for approving the project’s work plan for the first half of 2022. It shall now be presented before the project steering committee, the highest forum of the project.”
Marie Claude-Frauenrath, Project Manager and Senior Trade Promotion Officer, International Trade Centre

“We are glad to see that the project is gathering momentum following the COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions. The project’s Mid-term review will be conducted in June 2022 and will cover January 2020 to May 2022. It will guide the EU on the investment and trade relations with Nepal in the coming years.”
Mim Hamal, Senior Programme Manager, European Union Delegation

 About the project

EU-Nepal TIP, funded by the European Union (EU), aims to strengthen Nepal’s path towards more inclusive economic growth and greater integration into regional and global value chains.

As part of the project’s dedicated component on building private-sector capacity for trade-related public-private dialogue and reforms, the training built on the results of a diagnostic assessment of the advocacy capacity of trade support institutions in Nepal, where the need to receive capacity-building training on advocacy was expressed in unison. The project recently organized a virtual training on WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement for members of Nepal’s private sector.