President Xi will be the first Chinese Head of State to visit Nepal in 23 years, according to media reports. The last Chinese President to visit Nepal was Jiang Zemin in 1996. Xi is visiting Nepal at the invitation of the country’s President Bidya Devi Bhandari.
He will arrive in Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu after completing a two-day informal summit-level visit to India.
During President Xi’s visit on Saturday and Sunday, both sides are expected to have delegation-level talks on issues of mutual interest.
“Following the talks, both leaders (President Xi and Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli) will witness the signing of bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding,” Nepal daily Kathmandu Post quoted the foreign ministry as saying in a statement.
Kathmandu confirmed President Xi’s state visit after Beijing communicated to New Delhi about Xi’s visit to Mamallapuram, a resort town in southern India, for the second informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 11 and 12 October.
The first informal summit between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi took place in Wuhan city in April 2018.
Relations between Nepal and China have remained friendly and cordial since both countries formalised diplomatic relations in 1955. The countries share a 1,414-km-long border.
China is Nepal’s second-largest trading partner. In 2017-18 fiscal, total exports to China were around $23 million while imports from China were around $1.5 billion.