Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala inaugurated Nepal Trade Fair-2000 amidst a function at the Birendra International Convention Centre today.

Organised by the Trade Promotion Centre, the trade fair aims to identity Nepalese exportable products and develop and promote Nepal’s export trade thereby providing a bulwark of Nepal’s economic development.

At the five-day fair there are 99 stall displaying agricultural products, industrial goods, handicrafts and Nepal’s present export items as well as those having potential for export in the future.

In his inaugural address, Prime Minister Koirala said,”We, like other nations of the world, need to strive for economic development of the nation with our entry into the new millennium.”

“It is imperative to protect, promote and encourage our export trade so as to give a definite direction to the country’s productive sector and there is no two opinion about it,” the Prime Minister noted, adding: “This will broaden the base of production and service sectors particularly linked directly or indirectly with exports.”

“The country’s productive sector can neither flourish nor be durable until domestic labour and skill scattered over the country, original product and production potentialities are brought in line with productive front and system,” Premier Koirala said.

If this sector is to be made self-reliant it will be necessary to revive and promote rural cottage industries flourishing in the villages, though fraught with extinction in many areas, he said.

We should start thinking right now on how to develop the potential to tackle the challenges that might crop up after the country would get the membership of the World Trade Organisation, and His Majesty Government was quite serious about this matter, he said, adding that co-operation from private sector industrialists was quite essential in this task.

On the one hand, the industrialists and entrepreneurs of the country can judge for themselves what trade prospects the items   and services on display at the trade fair hold out, while on the other, the foreign visitor and traders’ reaction, interaction and their express opinion at the fair can serve as guidelines for  improving Nepal’s exportable products and their promotion, he said.

On the occasion, Minister for Industry and Commerce Ramkrishna Tamrakar said that the trade fair would play significant role in the identification and diversification of export items and trade.

We could put up a good impression in the world if we protected and promoted our natural assets and culture and traditional industries, he added.

Minister of State for Industry and Commerce Narendra Bikram Nemwang said it was necessary to make export trade strong and effective as this would pave the way for economic development of the nation.

Commerce secretary Mohan Dev Panta said necessary efforts were under way to chalk out strategies to promote export trade on a durable basis through joint endeavours of the government and private sector.

Fncci chairman Pradip Kumar Shrestha presided over the function.

Trade Promotion Centre executive director Hari Adhikari shed light on various aspects of Nepal’s export trade.