BRI progress in Nepal

Nepal can leverage China's infrastructure and economic growth expertise through this initiative.

As Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli prepares for his forthcoming China visit, the political debate in Kathmandu has reached a fever pitch. Within the Nepali Congress (NC), concerns about whether Nepal should embrace loans or grants through China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are rising. Recently, an esteemed Indian political analyst remarked in a private discussion that BRI could deeply reshape Global South’s development aspirations. For many low- and middle-income countries constrained by limited financial resources, the initiative offers a potential pathway to realise ambitious development goals, paralleling China’s rapid growth trajectory of recent decades. Despite contributing over 30 percent of the global economic growth, China’s development model, which challenges Western norms, has yet to be entirely accepted by many developed nations.