Chinese team to visit Nathula for trade survey

A four-member delegation from the Chinese Embassy, New Delhi, is scheduled to visit Nathula Pass to carry out a survey on the status of trade, which remains stagnant after opening on May 1 this year at a paltry Rs 3 lakh, mostly Indian exports to China.

The Ministry of Commerce is about to revise the item list for trade as was repeatedly requested by the Indian trading community, very soon.

The delegation will visit Sherathang on Indian side before passing through Nathula to the TDM at TAR, Requinnggang and then return to India after a day.

The Chinese traders are facing severe problems with imports of raw wool being almost nil, and according to them, out of the listed 15 items they would only deal with current items and not old obsolete ones.

Saga Dawa celebrated: Sikkim celebrated the most auspicious Buddhist festival Saga Dawa, considered to be thrice blessed as it marks the birth, attainment of Nirvana and the death or mahaparinirvana of the Buddha.

Saga Dawa is celebrated on the full moon day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar according to Tibetan Buddhism and is marked by prayers being offered in all monasteries across the State.

This year being declared as the Lho-Na or the black lunar year, pujas were offered in the houses of people to ward off evil,while processions were taken out in Gangtok to showcase  

China wants Nathula’s tourism potential tapped
China and India need to tap Nathula’s potential for tourism, a Chinese diplomat has said.
Bu Jiamguo, minister counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, made this point to Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling when she led a four-member Chinese team to meet the latter here yesterday.
“Both China and Sikkim should explore the possibility of tourism via Nathula,” she said, adding that there was an urgent need for good infrastructure like hotels and warehouses on either side of the border for trade to flourish.
The delegation called on Chamling soon after its return from a study trip to Sherathang and Nathula in Sikkim and Renquinggang in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) across the border.
Situated at a height of over 14,000 ft in East Sikkim, Nathula was reopened for border trade with China in July last year.
Bu also told Chamling that the Chinese Government was looking forward to an increase in the volume of trade through the Nathula Pass in the spirit of friendship, cooperation and new understanding that is in the interest of both countries.
Chamling told the Chinese team how important it was to expand and modernise the list of tradable items to enhance the volume of trade through the route.
“New commodities which are of use to both countries could be included in the trading list, doing away with some of the indigenous items which are non-tradable and outdated,” Chamling told the delegation.
He also expressed his keenness to start a bus service between Gangtok and Lhasa if the concept was approved by the Central Government.
The idea of a bus service between Gangtok and Lhasa was first broached by Chamling soon after the agreement between India and China to reopen Nathula for trade was inked in 2003.se the life and teachings of the Buddha.

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