Tourism promotion

KATHMANDU: Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), along with five travel trade companies promoted Pashupatinath and Muktinath at the Travel and Trade Fair in Chennai, India, on January 4-6. Visited by more than 10,000 people, 1,000 travel trade companies and 150 media representatives, the fair provided a good platform for Nepal to promote Pashupatinath and Muktinath temples along with other leisure destinations and activities keeping in view the upcoming summer holidays in Tamil Nadu in particular and south India in general. — HNS

Nepali shoe house

KATHMANDU: Local footwear manufactures that had teamed up and launched a showroom showcasing Nepali branded shoes at Naach Ghar, Jamal has completed 100 days since opening its doors to customers on Monday. On the occasion, it is giving a discount of 10 per cent on the purchase of Nepali branded shoes. The companies that have teamed up to keep their products under a single roof include Shikhar, BF Dear Hill, Sky, Koseli, Cross Road, Leather Wings, Takura and Foot Land. The firms hope it will help them promote their latest offerings and the local leather industry as a whole. — HNS

Frame centre opens

KATHMANDU: CB Mount and Framing Center has officially started business operations from Buddhanagar, Kathmandu. The centre has started providing services including photo framing, garland framing, liquid lamination, and glossy and matte lamination, it said, adding that it has imported the latest technology for top quality framing. The newly opened centre will provide any kind of photo related solutions, it added. — HNS

Kalyan holds AGM

KATHMANDU: Kalyan Saving and Credit Co-operative hosted its 13th annual general meeting (AGM) under its chairman Lila Bahadur Gurung, with former energy minister Gokarna Bista and member of board of directors at National Co-operative Bank Ram Sharan Ghimire as chief guests. Speaking on the occasion, Gurung said the cooperative was able to collect share capital worth Rs 50.015 million, deposit worth Rs 420.41 million and floated loans worth Rs 390.50. It posted an operating profit of Rs 10.68 million and its business transactions excluding bad loans and other funds of Rs 50.95 million was at Rs 610.83 million during the last fiscal year, Gurung said. — HNS

Laos to join WTO

KATHMANDU: Laos informed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that it has ratified its membership agreement. With Laos ratification of WTO, Laos will officially become the WTO’s 158th member on February 2, under the global trade regime procedures. The membership deal was approved by the WTO General Council on October 26. Laos’ chief negotiator industry and commerce minister Nam Viyaketh and WTO director-general Pascal Lamy signed the Protocol of Accession immediately afterwards, ending 15 years of negotiations. — HNS

Buddha Air expands

KATHMANDU: Buddha Air started a daily flight to Surkhet from Thursday. The company will increase the number of flights to the new destination if demand picks up in the coming days, it said, adding that it is the only domestic airline company to fly to Surkhet. Buddha has fixed the time for Kathmandu-Surkhet flight

at 1:45pm and Surkhet-Kathmandu flight at 3:10pm. The airline has fixed the price of a one-way flight at

Rs 9,190. Buddha Air is the only private domestic airline company to fly to both domestic and international

destinations. — HNS