Nepal's banks loan US$140.5m to Hongshi Shivam Cement

Hongshi Shivam Cement of Nepal has been supported by a consortium of five of Nepal's commercial banks who have approved credit of US$140.48m to the 6000tpd Nepal-China joint venture.

The joint venture required the loan to conclude financial closure of the new cement plant that begun trial production earlier this year. The banks involved include NMB Bank, Nepal Investment Bank, Prabhu Bank, Everest Bank and Nepal SBI Bank.

The project has already received approval to inject foreign direct investment (FDI) worth US$86.22m from the Investment Board, Nepal and the Central Bank. The Chinese company pledged FDI of US$359.18m in the project.

Lai Weiping, manager and director of Hongshi Shivam Cement, said: "We are delighted on the financial closure of the project, which makes Hongshi Shivam the largest cement factory in Nepal."

"We have recently received quality certificates for our cement from the Napali government. So we can now start commercial production of cement shortly," said Satish Kumar More, a director of Hongshi Shivam Cement.

ICR featured a plant report on the construction of the new Hongshi Shivam Cement plant in the ICR July 2018 issue.