Kathmandu, Jan.20: John Shepherd, visiting British Deputy Under Secretary of State of Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said that Nepal has to persuade British companies that this is a better place to invest. Underscoring the fact that Britain is the second largest source of foreign direct investment in the world, Shepherd said that Nepal has many opportunities to attract investors.

John Shepherd

“Clearly one of the ways this country can be made attractive to invest is by ensuring the potential to exploit the Indian as well as the Nepalese markets,” the senior official at British Foreign Office told reporters here today. “Because that is between two countries, the government here has more of a role in ensuring that the free exchange between the two countries is real and not just potential.”

He further added that there needs to be a considerable effort of marketing on Nepal’s part. “Such efforts could be like the two trips to London the Nepalese Ministers are undertaking in the future. Nepal British Chamber of Commerce and Industries can also make a big contribution on the business network getting the messages out that the opportunities are here.

The British Under Secretary said that his country has the expertise in marketing, licensing, regulation, commercial side of some enterprises that need to involve private business because, he added, governments nowadays don’t have the resources to do these as government schemes. “What we can offer is that combination of engineering, financial, legal, and other skills, to put them together as a package so that a complete project concept can be realised.”

The senior British official, however, said that such cooperation cannot be easy. “Because all the conditions have to be right. If the conditions are right, our companies could make a real contribution to that potential.”

Commenting on the barriers to develop trade relations between Nepal and Britain, Shepherd said that the first wall is the distance and accessibility because, to the extent the trade is about goods, it is certainly important to have the infrastructure that allows you to exchange goods without adding huge costs.

In a positive note, he said that trade is about services and investments. “In those sectors distance isn’t quite so important. With good telecommunications and information technology, distance can be reduced.”

On the possibilities of Nepal’s export to Europe, he said that Britain can be a gateway for that purpose. “Exporting, however, is not easy. Business has to establish links and market its products in highly sophisticated and competitive markets.”

Nepal, according to him, has good products, some of them immensely popular in the UK. “Your pashmina shawls are on every woman’s shoulder in London this winter. You got to keep them there. For that you got to change the designs, modernise the product and have the right marketing assistance.”

Britain, said Shepherd, is an open market where good business and marketing can get without any trouble. He further said that people in Britain would be happy to buy things that were made in Nepal “because Nepal is a good brand in my country.”

He, however, said that Nepal-Britain trade figures are not brilliant at the moment. “So a lot has to be done to tap the huge potential.”

On the Gorkha issue, the British official said that the general people in Britain are as happy as Nepalese are on the solution reached recently on the Gorkha pension row.

With the British government, of late, so much focussing on trade rather than on granting aid, Shepherd said that trade produces far greater developmental effects than aid does. “The days of large budgetary aid are over.”

But, he added that the British Government has not stopped development programme in the country. “It is expanding. We have moved our experts from Bangkok to Kathmandu so that they are here on the spot able to do more focussed and better job. It’s true that the resources involved may be less but the impact on the development process should be far greater.”

Shepherd said that the achievements of his present visit have been to put business between Nepal and Britain into a fact. “Because if it is going to be a development of economic relations between the two countries, it’s not something for governments to do. That’s something for the business to do.”