PM Oli to depart for Spain to attend Financing for Development conference

KATHMANDU: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli will depart for Spain on Saturday for an official visit, leading a Nepali delegation. He is due to attend the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development from June 30 to July 3.

Nepal’s Ambassador to Spain, Shanil Nepal, said all preparations for the visit have been completed and that the Nepali community in Spain is eager to welcome the Prime Minister. During his stay, PM Oli will hold bilateral talks with his Spanish counterparts and sign memoranda of understanding to expand relations and cooperation. He will also meet the Nepali community and members of the Spanish business fraternity.

The Nepali Embassy has confirmed that further high-level meetings will take place on the sidelines of the conference.

Spain is a western European country with a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, covering some 505,990 sq km and with a population of around 47 million. It joined the European Union in 1986 and the Schengen Area in 1995.

Diplomatic relations between Nepal and Spain were established on May 1, 1968. Nepal opened its resident embassy in Madrid in 2018; in the absence of a Spanish embassy in Kathmandu, Madrid’s diplomatic affairs are handled by the Spanish mission in New Delhi.

High-level exchanges between the two countries date back to King Birendra’s visit to Spain in 1983 and King Carlos’s state visit to Nepal in 1987. More recent visits include Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s participation in a trafficking discussion in 2016, Minister Gokul Prasad Baskota’s attendance at a GSM conference in 2019, and President Bidya Devi Bhandari’s visit in 2021, when Nepal and Spain agreed to cooperate on climate change and tourism.

Spain remains one of the world’s leading tourist destinations, attracting about 12.5 million visitors annually, while 19,563 tourists from Spain travelled to Nepal in 2018. Nepal’s natural landscapes, cultural diversity, spiritual heritage and adventure-tourism potential are increasingly drawing Spanish and other European visitors. The Prime Minister’s visit is expected to boost Nepal’s profile as a tourism and investment destination in Europe.

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