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They said that every successive government and political leadership announced to improve trade connectivity with China but they always held back from making any important decision for improving trade with China just to appease India.
Officials said the leaders never took action-oriented initiatives fearing that Indian establishment might consider their actions against the interest of the southern neighbor and that it could create hurdle for them to ascend to power.
"Leaders make big promise in public. But they never work as per their announcements because they always want to get blessings from Indian leadership instead of working for the national interest," former Chief Secretary Leela Mani Paudyal told Republica. "Had the leaders worked sincerely as per their commitments, the trade connectivity with the northern neighbor would have been improved years ago."
Nepal has not learnt lessons from history is evident from the fact that it has been over 25 years since India first imposed trade blockade along Nepal-India border but none of the governments formed since then did anything remarkable for improving trade connectivity with China.
"It is really unfortunate that our political leaderships never showed the willpower and seriousness to protect and promote national interests," said Paudyal, "If any action favored national interest, political leadership should have gone for it at any cost instead of wasting time on what other countries would think of the decision," added Paudyal.
A high-ranking government official said that officials at the Ministry of Commerce and Supply have been working just to increase trade dependency with India instead of preparing serious plans for enhancing trade with China. The official said under the condition of anonymity that a recent agreement by Nepal Oil Corporation with Indian Oil Corporation for implementation of the Raxaul-Amlekhgunj Petroleum Pipeline Project was one of such decisions which only helped increase Indian dependency.
The agreement states that IOC will be the sole distributor of petroleum products for Nepal for another 15 years.
Joint-secretary Kebal Bhandari, who has worked for years overseeing customs-related responsibilities, said that the government should immediately work to construct road infrastructures in the eight customs points along the Nepal-China border. "The government can invest amount allocated for rural road constructions to develop infrastructures in the customs points to lower the dependency with India," he added.
He said that India would have felt pressure had Nepal's government been able to import only petroleum products from China during the recent blockade imposed by India.
According to reports, Nepal's trade dependency on India has constantly been increasing from a minimum of 20 per cent to around 80 per cent at present since the 1989 blockade.
"The more the trade dependency on a single country, the more the dependent country has to give up its national interests," said Paudyal. "So it is high time we took serious initiatives to diversify trade with various countries."
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