Huawei tie-up puts Nepal’s billionaire Chaudhary clan in crossfire of US-China conflict
- Family owns banks, hotels and hospitals, but plans to move into telecoms and hydropower to stay ahead
- Chaudhary Group’s 5G project also heightens competition between China and India over influence in the region
From his square, glass-walled office atop the family headquarters in Kathmandu, scion Nirvana Chaudhary has a 360-degree view of the capital from which he can point out various holdings of his family’s group – bank branches, a food production complex, hotels, hospitals.
Few families have such a stranglehold over their homeland as do the Chaudharys, Nepal’s first and only billionaire clan. Their US$1.4 billion fortune is worth about 5 per cent of the nation’s fast-growing GDP.
Nirvana, eldest of three brothers who will inherit an empire that spans 30 countries, says the family must move into new businesses including telecommunications and hydropower to stay ahead.
The group is investing in hydro projects, but it is the push into mobile telephony that has put the Chaudhary clan in the crossfire of the world’s political and economic conflicts.
To build a 5G-ready network, Chaudhary decided to partner with Huawei Technologies, the Chinese company at the centre of a trade spat between China and the US. The tie-up also heightens competition between China and India over influence in the region between the world’s two most populous countries.