Kathmandu, Feb 14 (IANS): China has printed and delivered Nepal's 1,000 rupee notes.

The Himalayan nation has received 24 million 1,000 rupee notes printed by China Banknote Printing and Minting Corp, Xinhua news agency reported.

Bhuban Kadel, Executive Director of Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank, said the printing cost in China was lower.

"The quality is as good as the ones printed earlier in another country but the cost is less than half of the amount we had earlier paid," Kadel told Xinhua.

Timely delivery of the notes was important for the central bank to provide grant aid to the 2015 earthquake victims.

The NRB will take delivery of all 1,000 rupee notes in three batches. Under the first lot, 84 million notes have been delivered.

The Chinese company won the tender in August last year to print 1,000 rupee notes, the largest denominated currency note in Nepal.

The same Chinese company had earlier printed Nepal's 100 rupee notes as well.

Nepal had earlier been getting its notes printed by Indonesian, French and Australian companies among others.