CHINA agreed yesterday to consider building a railway into Nepal and to start a feasibility study for a free trade agreement with the landlocked country.

    Meeting in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Nepali Prime Minister K.P. Oli told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang he had “come to China with a special mission” when it came to strengthening relations.

    Hou Yanqi, deputy head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Asia Division, said Oli raised the possibility of two rail lines, one connecting three of Nepal’s most important cities and two others crossing the border from China into Nepal.

    Hou said the government would encourage Chinese firms to look at the internal rail plan, and that China was already planning to extend the railway from the Tibetan city of Shigatse to Gyirong on the Nepal border.

    “Of course, a further extension from Gyirong is an even longer-term plan. It’s up to geographic and technical conditions, financing ability. We believe that far in the future the two countries will be connected by rail,” she said.

    The two countries signed a total of 10 agreements, including on the feasibility plan for a free trade agreement, as well as a concessional loan for a new airport in Nepal’s Pokhara and a feasibility study for oil and gas survey projects.

    Kathmandu says it wants to import 33 percent of the annual demand of 1.8 million tons of petroleum products from China but trade officials say absence of connectivity — logistics, cost and transportation through difficult Himalayan terrain — poses a challenge to any fuel trade between the two countries.(SD-Agencies)