SME Times News Bureau | 24 Mar, 2021
In a bid to strengthen the foot-print of India’s
agricultural and processed food products export to Nepal, APEDA organized a
virtual Buyer Seller Meet (BSM) in association with Indian Embassy, Kathmandu.
The BSM was organised yesterday on 23rd March
2021 where key stakeholders such as officials and trade representatives from
India and Nepal came on a common platform to discuss the strategic cooperation
in the field of agriculture and allied sector.
The BSM with Nepal is the seventeenth in the
series of such virtual meets organized by APEDA in last few months.
The focus of BSMs have been to engage with all
potential countries for providing a platform to connect exporters and importers
in the agriculture and allied sectors.
Officials from APEDA, Indian Embassy, Kathmandu,
Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Nepal and Nepal Chamber of
Commerce and other stakeholders participated in the virtual meet.
Exporters from India and importers of Nepal had
interactions with each other during BSM.
Since the COVID19 pandemic, there was a shift of
focus towards India and neighboring trade partners creating new opportunities
for alliance between various countries.
Since the two countries enjoy a long-term
association, India continued to ensure the food and nutrition supplies to Nepal
during the COVID19 difficult times.
In 2019-20, India's- total merchandise trade with
Nepal stood at USD 7.87 billion. APEDA products export to Nepal was worth of
USD 670.6 million (volume of shipment 1,896,915 Metric Tonne).
India's principal exports items during 2019-20
included Non-Basmati Rice, Cereal Preparations, Miscellaneous Preparations,
Maize and Ground nuts etc. During the same period, India's agricultural import
from Nepal were processed items, cereal products, processed fruits &
juices, alcoholic beverages and processed vegetables etc.