Nepal’s Prime Minister invites Tesla CEO Elon Musk to visit Nepal

Nepal: On the social networking site X (previously Twitter), Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said that he had just invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk to come to Nepal. “A short while ago, during my conversation with Mr. Elon Musk, I extended an invitation for him to visit Nepal,” Oli said on Twitter.

The declaration was made as tensions over the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework grew inside Nepal’s governing coalition.

Oli said on Friday that he will be visiting China on December 2 and would want to explore loan-based initiatives within the BRI framework.

Despite Nepal’s present economic difficulties, Oli emphasized the prospective advantages of Chinese-funded projects while speaking at a large assembly in Kathmandu that was organized by his party, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML). “A group of government officials will go to China under my direction. I am going to China as Prime Minister starting on December 17th, and I am certain that the trip will be a huge success. “I’m not going to China just to wander around; this is for the country’s good,” Oli said.

He reassured the audience about the need for foreign financing and emphasized the significance of development that is focused on output. “We need to boost our output, but we don’t want to take out loans from anywhere. We’re not in a position where we can take on extra debt. What steps can we take to boost our output? We don’t have to be sad about it,” Oli said.

The Nepali Congress, a coalition partner, emphasized the need for China to fulfill its current grant promises and opposed any further loans under the BRI framework. “The Nepali Congress is not opposed to the BRI; we are simply saying that we cannot take on new loans at this time,” Nepali Congress spokesman Prakash Sharan Mahat said. “What is the point of discussing loans if the grant implementation itself is lagging?” he said. The amount of debt is already rising.

Mahat emphasized the need to attend to ongoing obligations. He said, “The focus should be on implementing the grants, especially those under the BRI, and avoiding new loans,” during a meeting held at the Federal Parliament building.