Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel, who is in Indian Capital New Delhi to lay groundwork for upcoming visit of Prime Minister KP Oli, held a luncheon meeting with his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley at Hotel Taj on Monday.

During the meeting, Minister Jaitley said that India is willing to extend support in Nepal’s development projects based on priority and necessity of the projects.

Minister Jaitley assured that India is ready to extend financial assistance and provide resources in the reconstruction projects for the earthquake damaged structures. He was curious about Nepal’s strategy on post-quake reconstruction activities.

“Poudel informed Jaitley about the Infrastructure Development Bank being established in Nepal in order to take development projects institutionally,” said Shankardas Baigari, Secretary at Foreign Ministry of Nepal, who is accompanying Poudel in the visit. “The talks were focused on drawing India’s attention towards the growing investment-friendly environment in Nepal.”

During the luncheon meeting, Minister Poudel read out his two-page long speech in Nepali which was welcomed by Jaitley in Hindi. Minister Poudel was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Bairagi, Finance Secretary Lokdarshan Regmi, Nepali Ambassador to India Deep Kumar Upadhyay, among others. The Indian team included Union Finance Minister Jaitley, Indian Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae, Chief of Nepal Desk at External Affairs Ministry Abhay Thakur, among others.

“Nepal-India relationship is not all about politics and economy. We have strong social and cultural ties,” Dundiraj Pokhrel, an official at Nepali Embassy who looks after financial matters, quoted Minister Poudel’s speech. “We expect further assistance from our closest neighbour India on Nepal’s reconstruction phase that has slowed down due to inadequate resources.”

Minister Poudel has been holding parleys with all the concerned stakeholders in India to make PM Oli’s upcoming visit result-oriented.

Minister Poudel is scheduled to meet Indian security advisor Ajit Doval before returning to Capital on Tuesday.