Nepalese billionaire wants India to play key role

Binod K Chaudhury, the first billionaire of Nepal, said Sunday that India has to play leading role in the SAARC to increase trade within the region and globally through addressing the issues of trade deficits.
He said the inter-regional scenario regarding trade is changeable depending on the natural resources and their free flow.
The billionaire of the small Himalayan country told the FE in an interview on the sideline of the International Conference on Global Economic Recovery: Asian Perspective at the Hotel Sonargaon.
He said the big trade gap of SAARC with other Asian countries could be reduced by mobilising resources and increasing trade facilities through regional, inter regional cooperation.
But the smaller countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, need resource mobilisation with the cooperation of big member countries, he added.
He expressed his satisfaction over investment in power generation by Indian government in Nepal as a means of utilizing natural resources.
Regarding investment in Bangladesh, Binod K Chaudhury said his company is going to set up a plant in the country to produce world famous noodle Wai Wai with an investment of Tk 500 million.
He said his noodle company has plants in different countries including India, Myanmar occupying two per cent of the world market. It will expand the business to more countries including Egypt, South Africa, Nairobi and Salvia .
Chairman of the Cinnovation/ Chaudhary Group, a conglomerate of close to 80 companies entered into India with famous Wai Wai brand of instant noodles apart from his business in banking, foods, cement, real estate, hotels, power, retail, electronics etc. It has forged a partnership with India's Taj Hotels Group which owns hotels in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand as well as in India. His company has also a stake in Alila, an Asian luxury boutique chain and is additionally creating its own hotels under the Zinc brand.
Mr Chaudhury said the new investment in the region is likely to be worth US dollar 300 million as per his mission to make his company global.
 "My vision is to make my company truly global with efforts like listing into the world stock market to prove that small country like Nepal can be a global partner," he added.