Dubai: The Embassy of Nepal on Friday organised an exhibition in Sharjah to promote the agro-based and manufacturing products and handicrafts of the Himalayan country in the UAE.
Netra Bahadur Tandan, Ambassador of Nepal to the UAE, inaugurated the exhibition in Sharjah, which is being held in the country for the first time. The exhibition aims to promote interaction between the Nepali Business Council-Dubai, business persons from other countries based in the UAE, supermarkets and hypermarkets in the UAE.
“We are opening up the possibilities of these products to be imported here from Nepal. We are optimistic that the Nepali Business Council, supermarkets and hypermarkets and the stakeholders concerned will bring these products to the UAE. We have already seen some Nepali products in the UAE like WaiWai Noodles, Nepali Himalayan Honey etc,” Krishna Aryal, Second Secretary and Information Officer at the embassy and organiser of the exhibition, told Gulf News.
“We have selected Nepalese products as potentially viable to export to the UAE such as lentils/pulses, honey, instant noodles, gold and silver jewellery, Nepali Dhaka clothes, herbal products and oil, and Himalayan water (drinking water),” he added.
The UAE is the third largest trading partner of Nepal after India and China. But Aryal said the “trade deficit between the two countries is alarming”, hence the need to boost the export of goods from Nepal to the UAE.
“The export-import ratio for the last three years (2013-15) is 1:111, 1:107 and 1:178, respectively. To reduce the trade deficit and balance the trade relations with the UAE, we are organising this programme so that Nepalese products get exposure in the UAE and the demand for these products increases.”
During the 2012-2016 period, imports from the UAE to Nepal stood at $1.64 billion (Dh6 billion) whereas Nepal’s exports to the UAE were only $13.5 million. For the same period, Nepal’s exports to India, China and the UAE were 64.8 per cent, 12.2 per cent and 5.1 per cent, respectively.
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