Discussion on BRI in South Asia

Former Finance Minister Prakasharan Mahat said that Nepal should have the same approach with its neighbors and other countries in terms of financial assistance. "As we struggle to access low-interest multilateral loans from the World Bank and ADB, we need to review, compare and question the terms and conditions of the market rate and short-term bilateral loans," he said.

Mahat also pointed out that there is a lack of homework on the part of Nepal in bilateral or multilateral talks. He clarified that there is no problem for Nepal to advance BRI. In 2017, Nepal signed an agreement on the concept of BRI.

Chairman of the International Relations and Tourism Committee of the Parliament, Rajkishore Yadav, requested the government of Nepal to make public the BRI agreement with China in 2017. He said, "There is a need for a comprehensive discussion on the BRI in the Parliament." He mentioned that the government should clarify the current status of the negotiations on the BRI and should not take any commercial loan.

'Our talks with China should focus on grants and concessional loans at interest rates from other multilateral financial institutions and there should be no strings attached,' he said. . "Sri Lanka's slow pace of loan negotiations with China is delaying the economic recovery process," he said.

Mostakim Bin Motaher, an associate professor at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, said China's presence in Bangladesh's infrastructure has grown significantly in recent years with deep trade and investment ties. He said some of the common features of China-funded projects are cost escalation, non-transparent or absent bidding processes and delays in implementation.

India's Constantino Xavier mentioned three reasons behind India's decision to stay out of BRI. He said that BRI is operated and led only by China, behind Chinese economic and strategic interests are adverse to India and there is concern about BRI's ability to take capital. He said, "Nepal should rely on itself and develop its capacity."

CESIF executive chairman and former ambassador Vijayakant Karna said that the aim of the seminar is to identify the opportunities and challenges of China's BRI with the experiences of regional neighbors who have implemented projects under BRI. He expressed concern about the propriety and importance of the BRI Implementation Plan agreement instead of negotiating the projects individually. Talks should be based on an individual project. "The same financing and implementation modality may not fit projects of different nature," he said.

Former Foreign Secretary Madhurman Acharya emphasized on the need for transparent discussion and strategic dialogue to effectively identify Nepal's involvement with BRI. He gave the example of Pokhara International and emphasized that since China has strategic and economic interests in BRI, Nepal should have its own objective evaluation of each project. He said that China is "moving the goalposts" in BRI.