Kathmandu, May 20: Mr Ram Krishna Tamrakar, Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies reached Geneva on May 17 for the first round of talks between His Majesty’s Government and the working party established by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on the Accession of Nepal to the Organisation.

Mr Tamrakar is leading a eight member nepalese delegation comprising of officials from different ministries of His Majesty’s Government.

Minister Tamrakar had a meeting with Mr Kare Bryn, ambassador of Norway and chairman of the WTO General Council Fraiday.

Mr Tamrakar also met Mr Roger Farrell, ambassador of New Zealand and chairman of the WTO working party, and other officials of WTO Friday.

During the meetings, Mr Tamrakar discussed different aspects of Nepal’s Accession to the WTO.

Minister Tamrakar also met Mr Denis Belisle, executive director and other senior officials of ITC and discussed matters relating to assistance being provided by ITC in Nepal trade promotion and diversification.

The Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies had a meeting with Mr Rubens Ricupero, secretary general of UNCTAD and discussed matters relating to the preparations for the 3rd UN Conference on LDCs to be held in Brussels next year and other areas of UNCTAD’s support to Nepal.

Meanwhile a two-day workshop on simplification of customs procedures was organised in collaboration with the Department of Customs, Nepal Multimodel Transit and Trade Facilitation Project (NMTTFP), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and World Customs Organisation (WCO) in Kathmandu from May 15-16.

Declaring open the workshop, Director General of the Department of Customs Basidhar Ghimire said that international legal instruments are useful guidlines for drawing references to streamling customs procedures. The Department of Customs (DPS) is gradually working on further simplification of customs formalities on the basis of these valuable guidelines, he added.

Welcoming the participants, deputy director general of the department of customs M. P. Ghimire threw light on the importance of the Kyoto Convention that has globally proved to be a valuable reference for facilitation of customs procedures.

NMTTFP Director extended thanks the particiants and the co-organisers for the excellent logistic support for the workshop.

Highlighting the objectives of the workshop, Ms. K. Subramanian, senior technical officer of WCO said that in the present day context of the challenges posed by the changing trade environment, international legal instruments were being developed to ensure that customs controls are properly exercised to facilitate trade.

The workshop was attended by about 40 officials from the ministries of finance, industry, commerce and supplies, law and justice and parliamentary affairs, the national planning commission, the Department of Customs and public and private sector institutions.