Nepal commerce and supplies minister Rajendra Mahato (left) with Indian external affairs minister SM Krishna in Delhi on Saturday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Aug. 22: India agreed to let Nepal use its port at Visakhapatnam for transit traffic of cargo as the landlocked Himalayan nation’s Prime Minister concluded his five-day visit with another seaside window to the outside world.

Nepal has so long been using Calcutta port to ship goods to the West but wanted access to another port to expand its market in the developed world.

Among the other “major achievements” of Prime Minister Madhav Nepal’s visit were mechanisms to boost bilateral trade and investment, two check posts for better border management and new rail links.

Both sides agreed that the two foreign secretaries would discuss the 1950 friendship treaty between the neighbours, though there was no major movement on the proposal to review the 59-year-old pact because of the lack of political consensus in Nepal.

“The two Prime Ministers directed the foreign secretaries to discuss and review the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship and other bilateral agreements with a view to further strengthening the bilateral relationship,” said a joint statement on the visit.

The Nepal Prime Minister later told reporters at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport that his maiden trip to India had been “highly satisfactory”, a PTI report said.

“The visit has helped to further strengthen bilateral relations and expand mutual cooperation and trade,” the agency quoted him as saying.

The trip, he said, had “added a new dimension to the existing bilateral relations between the two countries” and helped create an atmosphere of “trust and mutual understanding”.

In Delhi, sources said the talks focused on commerce and investment and access to the Andhra Pradesh port. Although the Visakhapatnam port is on the east coast and farther from western markets compared with ports on India’s west coast, it is closer to Nepal’s Birganj dry port by about 600km than, say, Mumbai port.

So, officials said, Nepal’s ministry of commerce and supplies pitched for Visakhapatnam for movement of goods to and from key western markets like the US and the European Union.

Now, most of the cargo Nepal imports is transported through a broad-gauge line that links Calcutta and Raxaul, in Bihar, on the Nepal border. At Raxaul, the cargo is unloaded and sent to Birganj by road or through a metre-gauge link. Nepalese exports take the reverse route.

The port in Mumbai, about 1,900km from Birganj port, also did figure in the talks as Nepal kept in mind future expansion in trade, and officials said Delhi had agreed to consider the request.

Both sides agreed that the inter-governmental committee at the level of commerce secretaries should look into boosting investments and industrialisation in Nepal. The two commerce secretaries will meet within two months.

The neighbours also signed a revised Treaty of Trade and Agreement of Cooperation to Control Unauthorised Trade.

For better border management, India agreed to soon start construction of two integrated check posts at Birganj-Raxaul and Biratnagar-Jogbani at an estimated cost of Rs 200 crore.

For improved rail connectivity, two cross-border links will be constructed with Indian help along the border.

One of them, 18km long, will be between Jogbani in Bihar and Biratnagar in Nepal. The other, a 51km link between Jayanagar in India and Bijalpura in Nepal, will involve conversion from metre to broad gauge and an extension of the route to Bardibas, Nepal.