Kathmandu, Aug 8: The Nepal government has called for Oman government to consider establishing its Embassy in Kathmandu.
Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal made the request in a meeting with the high-ranking officials of Oman on Wednesday.
In the first meetng of the Nepal-Oman Bilateral Consultation Mechanism held in Muscat, Foreign Secretary Lamsal emphasized on the need of collaboration in the areas of mutual interests/
During the meeting, the leaders of the delegation reviewed the whole gamut of bilateral relations and expressed satisfaction on the excellent state of relations existing between Nepal and Oman since 1977, informed the Muscat-based Nepali Embassy.
They discussed the bilateral relations and agreed to promote cooperation encompassing all sectors, especially the exchange of high-level visits, trade, investment, economic cooperation, agriculture, energy, tourism, labour and foreign employment, culture, education and direct air connectivity.
They expressed firm commitment to further enhance partnership in mutually agreed areas and to work togethertoward realizing economic opportunities for mutual benefits apart from creating more opportunity to promote people-to-people engagement.
Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal thanked the Government of Oman for providing employment to more than 21,000 Nepalis and emphasized on providing additional opportunities in view of His Majesty’s Oman Vision 2040 strategy.
She stressed the exploration of the untapped potential in economic, cultural and educational areas and proposed to establish meaningful collaborative partnership including in the private sector.
She firther urged the Omani side to explore investment opportunities in Nepal including in hydropower, tourism sector and collaboration in green hydrogen sector.
On the occasion, Undersecretary Sheikh Khalifa bin Ali bin Issa Alharthy expressed willingness to promote the cooperation between Nepal and Oman in all the mutually agreed sectors and hoped to conclude the pending MOUs.
He underscored the potential of the bilateral relationship and emphasized upon working together to realizing the actual benefits and also mentioned about the positive and hardworking nature of Nepali workers.
Both sides shared views on maintaining the tradition of regular exchange of high-level visits.
They also expressed commitment to cooperate with each other at various multilateral forums including the United Nations.
Both the sides deliberated to enhance the existing state of excellent relations through diversification of engagements in multiple sectors.
Earlier, Foreign Secretary Lamsal paid a courtesy call on Dr Mahad bin Said bin Ali Baowain, Minister of Labour, Sultanate of Oman. Matters related to the mutual cooperation including MoU in the field of labour and human resource exchange, employment opportunity, among others were also discussed.
Nepal-Oman Bilateral Consultations Mechanism was established in 2017.
Next meeting of the mechanism will be held in Kathmandu on mutually convenient dates.
