Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Zhang Maoming paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Balendra Shah at the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday afternoon.
During the meeting, the two discussed strengthening Nepal-China bilateral relations, promoting cooperation across various sectors, and enhancing development partnerships, according to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.
Ambassador Zhang congratulated Shah on assuming office and reaffirmed Beijing’s commitment to further consolidating bilateral ties and cooperative partnerships. In response, Prime Minister Shah underscored the need to deepen Nepal’s historic ties with China and highlighted the need to collaborate in areas of mutual interest.
The interaction with the Chinese envoy followed a separate one-on-one meeting earlier in the day between Prime Minister Shah and Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava at Singha Durbar.
The back-to-back individual meetings with ambassadors of two close neighbors signal Prime Minister Shah’s new foreign affairs policy. Earlier, Shah had avoided one-on-one sessions with individual foreign diplomats.
These were Prime Minister Shah’s first meetings with diplomats based in Kathmandu since May 26, when he held a joint meeting with 23 European Union ambassadors, resident envoys, and deputy heads of mission led by EU Ambassador Véronique Lorenzo. Before that, he held a joint meeting with 17 ambassadors based in Kathmandu on April 8.
Prime Minister Shah is scheduled to receive Scott Urbom, the Chargé d’Affaires a.i at the US Embassy in Kathmandu, for a courtesy meeting on Tuesday.
