Nepal, Bangla To Meet on Energy Trading, Investment

After a series of negotiations, Nepal and Bangladesh have finally decided to meet to pursue energy cooperation and investment between the two nations.

According to a recent update, both the countries have agreed upon to hold a two-day secretary-level bilateral meeting in the month of November 2018.

Towards this end, the Ministry of Energy Water Resources and Irrigation (MEWRI) of Nepal forwarded the proposal to Bangladeshi authorities to conduct a meeting of Joint Steering Committee (JSC), supported by the Energy Secretaries of both countries and a Joint Working Group (JWG) under the Joint Secretary of the Energy Ministries of both nations.

While the meeting during November 15-16, 2018 is yet to fix its agenda, a Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) official has reportedly informed that the discussion will be around two key agendas: Trading in energy sector between the two countries and Bangladeshi investment in Nepal’s hydropower sector.

“Once we hear back from the Bangladeshi authorities, we will finalize the agenda to be discussed in the meeting,” informed Dinesh Kumar Ghimire, Joint Secretary of MEWRI.

NEA is planning on export of power generated from Nepali hydropower projects to Bangladesh through the infrastructure support in the Indian territory.

On the other side, Bangladesh has also been keen on investing in Nepal energy sector, especially the hydropower sector.

Background
The two sides formed new mechanisms in this regard last month after signing MoU on energy cooperation in August 2018. In the same meeting, the two countries decided to form a JWG and a JSC to track the progress of discussions and provide relevant direction, which finally resulted in a scheduled meeting.