An official from the central bank of Nepal recently praised the quality of its banknotes printed by a Chinese company, saying that those banknotes are now improved in the regards of design, color and anti-counterfeiting techniques.

The 210 million banknotes, each with a value of 100 rupees ($0.9), were printed by the China Banknote Printing and Minting (CBPM) for the Nepalese central bank. It is also the first time for a Chinese company to print paper currency for Nepal.

The colorful banknotes printed by CBPM are of high quality yet produced at low cost, said Chinta Mani Siwakoti, Deputy Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the central bank of Nepal. It is also the first time for Nepal to have braille on its currency.

Due to the limited storage capacity of the NRB, the banknotes have to be shipped to Nepal in batches. It will take three to six months to ship all the notes.

Compared with the banknotes of the same face value printed by another country for Nepal in 2012, the new ones printed by China cost much less, Siwakoti said, adding that it costed 2.69 rupee in 2012 and now it only takes 2.15.

The first batch of China-printed banknotes entered circulation on June 12.