A Chinese city has offered Nepal to open a consulate general office at the earliest. 

In a meeting with visiting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal Thapa in Chengdu on Sunday, the Deputy Party Secretary and Mayor of Chengdu city of Sichuan Province Tang Lianhzhi asked Nepal to open up its consulate general office in the city.

According to Nepali Embassy in Beijing, the Chengdu Mayor also expressed his willingness to establish sisterly city relations with Kathmandu. 

Nepal has already proposed China to open its consulate general office in Guangzhou but China is yet to respond to the request.

Nepal has only two consulate general offices in China—at Lasha and Hong Kong. China has also requested Nepal to give permission to open its consulate general office in Pokhara. 

In his meeting, Thapa recalled the opinion expressed by Wang Yi, minister for Foreign Affairs of China, 

during his meeting in Beijing on Friday where he underscored the need of ‘sharing the prosperity’ created by the high economic growth 

of Chengdu as Nepal ushers into a ‘new era of economic development’.

The two leaders shared their views that a number of areas of cooperation should be explored as Kathmandu and Chengdu are geographically closer, culturally similar, connected by regular flights and enjoy the virtue of being major tourist destinations, said the statement.

The Mayor of Chengdu also underlined the need of a cooperation mechanism in order to further engage into economic cooperation between Kathmandu and Chengdu.

During the meeting, according to the Nepali Embassy statement, Thapa assured the Mayor that he will deeply look into the requests and proposals put forward by Tang. Thapa and members of the Nepali delegation, including Law Minster Agni Kharel, also visited various sites in Chengdu.