Speaking at a seminar on 'Aviation Cooperation between Nepal and China: Opportunities and Challenges' organized by Asia Pacific Daily in Kathmandu on Wednesday, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) Ananda Prasad Pokharel said preparations were underway to lay the foundation stone of PRIA by mid-February
Nepal and China are set to sign loan agreement for the airport project in March, according to finance ministry officials. Earlier in the first week of January, the government decided to take US$ 215.96 million loan from China EXIM Bank to develop the project.
Meanwhile, the government has also decided bring four Chinese aircraft -- two Modern Ark (MA 60) and two Y12e. "We have no alternative but to bring the remaining aircraft. However, the aircraft need to have certain corrections," added Pokharel.
Speaking at the program, Sugat Ratna Kansakar, managing director of Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), said the national flag carrier was in discussion with AVIC International -- the supplier of MA 60 and Y12e - for the last seven months regarding technical, logistics and insurance issues. "We will bring the remaining four aircraft, but only after the existing problems are addressed," he added.
NAC has been facing various problems with Y12e and MA 60 such as landing and take-off weight due to which the aircraft cannot carry passengers as per the capacity. Similarly, expensive spare parts, problem in timely delivery of spare parts, high insurance premium, and language barrier with Chinese pilots and technician are the other problems that NAC has been facing.
Speaking at the interaction, Sanjeev Gautam, director general of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said CAC China has been helping Nepal on issues related to air worthiness, personal licensing and flight operations in order to remove Nepali carriers from European Union's air safety list.
At the program, Hari Bhakta Shrestha, former director general of CAAN, made presentation on 'Investment Prospects in Nepal's Aviation' and Suman Pandey, president of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Nepal Chapter made presentation on 'Tourism and Aviation Relation between Nepal and China'.
Xu Bo, vice president of AVIC, said that their collaboration with Nepal's civil aviation sector is mainly dedicated to improve Nepal's overall strength by extending cooperation to other areas as well including hangar construction, airport facility improvement and human resource training, among others.
Speakers at the program, various speakers emphasized the need to strengthen air connectivity not only from different cities of China to Nepal but also from Nepal to different Chinese cities.
Kansakar said that NAC plans to fly to Guangzhou, Kunming, Beijing, and Shanghai from Kathmandu soon as it starts acquires wide-body aircraft.
Chinese ambassador to Nepal Wu Chuntai said Nepal should work to upgrade quality of Chinese tourists coming to Nepal by giving them new and innovative products. "We assure that more and more Chinese tourists will come to Nepal in the days to come and we will be providing more help to Nepal on different sectors," he added. He also assured that Chinese carriers, which have temporarily stopped flying to Nepal, will resume their flights soon.
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