The Department of Industry has approved a foreign direct investment (FDI) of Rs 20 billion for the export of buffalo meat to China.

Rajeshwor Gyawali, Director General of the department, confirmed that the Chinese investment was approved on Thursday, July 24.

[Read:  Nepal to Export Processed Buffalo Meat worth USD 1.5 Billion to China Annually ]

“I have approved a Chinese investment worth Rs 20 billion,” said Gyawali. “They had submitted a proposal to set up an industry to export buffalo meat to China. They came in today with all the formal documents, and it was approved.”

Nepal’s Himalayan Food International and China’s Shanghai Ziyan Food Company are set to jointly establish a state-of-the-art slaughterhouse to process and export buffalo meat to China.

 

This follows a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in December 2024 between the two companies to export processed buffalo meat worth $1.5 billion annually to China.

Under the agreement, Himalayan Food International will export 2.7 million metric tonnes of processed meat annually in the first phase. The MoU had outlined plans to build a fully automated animal slaughterhouse within six months.

This export initiative is based on a bilateral protocol signed during former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s visit to China, which aimed to enable formal trade in processed buffalo meat between the two countries.