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Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal will pay an official visit to India on September 13-14 at the cordial invitation of the Foreign Secretary of India Vinay Mohan Kwatra.

During the visit, the Foreign Secretary will hold a bilateral meeting with his Indian counterpart where the two sides will discuss different areas of cooperation between Nepal and India, read a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday.

The Foreign Secretary will return Kathmandu on September 15.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari today visited the British Embassy in Lainchaur, Kathmandu and put her signature on a condolence book on the demise of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. During her conversation with UK’s Ambassador to Nepal, Nicola Pollitt, the Head-of-State said with the passing away of Queen Elizabeth II, Nepal lost its good friend and expressed her sincere condolences on the passing away of the longest-serving British monarch.

The government has provided concession on customs tariff on the import of various goods. The Ministry of Finance has informed through a notice in the Nepal Gazettee that the rate of the tax on the import of various goods has been changed. As per the new provision, 90 percent concession is provided on the customs tariff on import of crude soybean oil, palm oil and sunflower oil. Revenue Secretary Rameshwor Dangal said the industries which were given 50 percent concession on the import of sunflower seeds for extracting sunflower oil before this will instead be given 90 percent concession. This new provision also applies to the import of soybean seeds for the production of oil and oilcake from it. Before this, the industries importing soybean seeds for this purpose got 50 percent concession on import of soybean seeds and now they will get 90 percent concession. Similarly, 90 percent concession is provided on customs tariff on the import of mustard, spinach, canola and rapeseed seeds. A 15 percent customs tariff has been imposed on the import of spring steel wire that industries producing optical fibre cable use as raw material. Recommending for the concessions under this section should be made on the basis of the production capacity of the industry and the annual quantity of consumption. The provision of imposition of 15 percent income tax on transactions, except those enjoying tax concessions, carried out within the metropolitan city area and of seven percent within the then municipality area by the cooperatives, has been removed. It is said that as per the new provision, cooperatives operating within the municipality area will get 5 percent concession, those operating within the sub-metropolitan city area will get 7 percent concession and those run within the metropolis area will be given 10 percent concession on income tax. Likewise, arrangements have been made for keeping the customs tariff of wire and iron rod only at 5 percent. However, the excise duty on the import of raw materials of sanitary pad has been removed now.

The Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan Dr Ashraf Shikhaliyev said that Nepal can also develop through digitalization and digital governance as Republic of Azerbaijan did. Dr Shikhaliyev expressed his experience during delivering his remarks in the 3rd Session “Digital Infrastructure and Technology Emigration: Leapfrogging Opportunities” of Nepal Infrastructure Summit 2022 organized by CNI today. Dr Shikhaliyev further informed the Summit that digitalization and digital governance has eased the livelihood of the public as well as changed the overall economy. Due to digitalization, Azerbaijan has become one of the most attractive destinations for all where visas can be obtained within an hour of online application which would be for 30 days, he said. Driving license can also be replaced within five minute of time and form registration will be completed within two days and the process is done very transparently without any corruption, he said. Hence, Dr Shikhaliyev stressed on digitalization and digital governance to adopt by Nepal for becoming the techno-friendly fast growing economy.