Nepal and China signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on tourism Monday in Kathmandu to promote tourism cooperation between the two countries.

According to the MOU, China will put Nepal on the list of outbound destinations for Chinese tourists while Nepal will authorize 67 Chinese travel agencies to bring Chinese tourists to Nepal.

Speaking on the occasion, Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said with the signing of the MOU, "we have opened a new chapter in our age-old relations and restated our determination to continue the exemplary relationship between our two countries based on the five principles of peaceful co-existence."

"I am sure this will not only help boost Nepalese tourism and Nepalese economy but also enhance people to people contact between the two countries," Deuba added.

He Guangwei, chairman of the National Tourism Administration of the People's Republic of China, said the signing of the MOU is a major event in the history of tourism cooperation between China and Nepal.

He expressed the confidence that the peoples of the two countries will have more tourism exchanges in the days to come.

Tourism entrepreneurs in Nepal hope that the MOU will help them to capture a fraction of the huge number of outbound Chinese tourists. Nepal's tourism is dependent mostly on Indian, Europeans and U.S. tourists, who together funnel in about US$ 160 million into the nation's economy last year.

( People's Daily November 27, 2001)