Mongolian government survives parliamentary vote on dismissal

Majority of Mongolian lawmakers voted against dismissal of Prime Minister Khurelsukh Ukhnaa amidst corruption allegation involving top officials and lawmakers. 

40 lawmakers voted Nay against dismissal versus 33 that voted Yea. 

The scandal polarized the Mongolian public and divided the ruling Mongolian People's Party into opposing factions led by PM and Speaker. 

PM and his faction demanded resignation of Speaker Enkbhold Mieygombo calling him god-father of corrupt special interest business group comprised of both ruling and opposition party members. 

During the heated debate, PM vowed to continue his struggle against corruption and for justice and hold all involved in corruption accountable before court and according to party discipline. 

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Turning Mongolia orange: Behavior change communication against domestic violence

The woman on the hotline wouldn’t let her go. Between planning on leaving and actually leaving, there are mine fields of abusive histories and excuses that the psychologist gently walks her through, mapping small steps to safe havens, and somehow getting the kids across unscathed.

The shelter is quiet, the only battle is raging in fiber-space, and stories burn phone lines in the women’s homes. She glances up. Her monitor shows 206 more calls that the police referred to the domestic violence hotline. The calls are only from the capital, Ulaanbaatar. And it was not even noon yet. 

An ADB team of specialists interviewed psychologists and police officers operating the domestic violence hotline 107 and also facilitated focus group discussions (FGDs) among women in select aimags (provinces). ADB has joined the #OrangeTheWorld campaign run by UN Women to end violence against women. The color orange is used to symbolize a brighter future without violence for women and girls.   

The italicized sentences below are drawn from actual situations described by psychologists in calls to the hotline, as related to the ADB team.  

Her fingers traced the trail her mind had mapped for days now. 1-0-7. Hung up. 1-0-7. Stay on the line.

Calling 107 is the first step toward healing, but it can be a difficult step to take. Callers breaking the silence about gender-based violence in Mongolia have navigated a perilous trail to get to this point. It is estimated that more than half (57.9%) of women with current or former intimate partners have experienced domestic violence, according to a 2017 study by the National Statistics Office of Mongolia and the UN Population Fund. 

Most survivor women are between 25 to 49 years old, at their economic peak and leaving ground-zeros in every work hour lost, in every togrog (Mongolian currency) of hospital stay from the sexual, physical, economic, and emotional assaults by people who said they love them.

  Calling hotline is 1st step toward healing for abused Mongolian women

There is that beautiful buzz about education: “When you educate a man, you educate a man. You educate a woman, you educate a generation.” And so it is for wounding a woman. Though the pain diminishes over time and aggression is dismissed like minor headaches, cells memorize hurt. The study supplies the numbers ­– almost a third (32.4%) of women experienced violence from partners who were themselves beaten regularly as children while 22.2% had mothers who were also survivors.     

Please stay on the line. She already spent 20 minutes with the caller who vacillated between breaths, at once contradicting herself, defending the partner and then asserting: but he cannot do this to me.   

In behavior change communication, the first order of business is to verify whether what is in the mind smatches not with what people say they do, but what they actually do. But minds are curious things, bent by many in-betweens—beliefs, perceptions, immediate needs, strong emotions.   

When the NSO/UNFPA study asked about acceptable behaviors by partners, more than half (55.4%) of women who survived physical and sexual abuse agreed that a good wife obeys her spouse even if she disagrees. And 1 in 4 women, regardless of social and economic status, said he can beat her if she is unfaithful. Even if threatened with killing, only 10% said they would seek exits. Even if badly injured, only 19% will choose to leave.    

ADB conducted FGDs and key interviews to design a behavior change communication component for a Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction-supported project on domestic violence in Mongolia. The women intimated that while marriage and domestic partnerships are a yoking together, a woman should leave home if she cannot endure any more violence.

They knew the straight paths for asking help: police, social workers, healthcare workers. But would they leave? Survivors are paralyzed by the unanswered questions: Will they be protected? What about the children? How will they live now?       

She knew where to call. She dared to call. 1-0-7. But she hung up again. What if they ask my name? What if they ask where I live?

  ADB, JFPR working to end violence against women in Mongolia

Anxiety over stigmatizing family members and the fear that their compromised anonymity could worsen the abuse, feed the strong reticence to report domestic violence. Women have cloaked themselves with invisibility to counteract shame, but this prevented almost half (43.6%) of survivors in the study from getting help and support services. While 36% told their friends, more than a quarter of survivors did not disclose the abuse. 

Mongolian law criminalizes domestic violence, requiring police to arrest the perpetrators. While this seems liberating for women, they shoulder the fines to bail out the very persons who hurt them. If their partners are breadwinners, the lost income from being detained falls on their backs. Hence the pauses in reporting to 107, the hanging up, and the urgent call for help only when the violence escalates.

An hour or two before midnight. The psychologist readies herself for this third, most critical shift, the time when more of the calls come, when women plead for rescue while barefoot in the snow with just a thin shirt and pants, and in her arms, babies and kids.  

On every shift, police join the professionally trained psychologists. A multimedia campaign will soon plaster 107 on broadcast, social media and physical spaces where women converge, and they are gearing for red alert. The counselors at the 107 hotline operation center know that how they communicate the crucial first response to women in crisis can save lives.

On the next base are social workers, and legal and medical professionals to whom the psychologists and police refer and lead survivors. They, too, know and guard against behavior that will turn women away, back to invisibility. 

Another crucial base is made up of community volunteers: teachers who professionally and intuitively know the signals of kids-at-risk; men who model positive, caring behavior; survivors whose storytelling will help emancipate; marriage registrars who will give tips on loving when registration is filed; women who look out for other women.          

These are the people who can turn Mongolia orange.  

Source:Asian Development bank

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Why the US Should Build on Its Role as Mongolia’s ‘Third Neighbor’

Mongolia, a landlocked nation of about 3 million people between China and Russia, has become an increasingly important geopolitical partner to the United States.

America’s relationship with Mongolia is not insignificant and provides many opportunities for both countries.

The United States established diplomatic relations with Mongolia in 1987. Since then, the U.S. has been firmly regarded as Mongolia’s most important “third neighbor”—a country that does not border Mongolia, but has strategic relations with it.

Over the past three decades, Mongolia has been a reliable diplomatic ally of the U.S. The country’s transition to stable democracy has been notable, too, especially among former Soviet republics.

Mongolia’s multiparty parliamentary system has yielded an open society, where political dissent is the norm, parliamentary debate is spirited, and compromise between parties is not uncommon.

That contrasts starkly with the rest of post-Soviet Central Asia, where some presidential governments have resulted in autocracies.

The State Department’s Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations for fiscal year 2019 asserts that the “primary goals of U.S. assistance to Mongolia are to ensure the United States remains a preferred partner over geographical neighbors Russia and China, and to give Mongolia greater latitude to chart an independent foreign and security policy.”

More importantly, Mongolia has been considered as an “emerging partner” and as a country with which the U.S. may cooperate to achieve a “shared vision of rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific.”

In fact, Mongolia has already demonstrated a strong commitment to working with the United States on strategic issues.

Mongolia is one of nine NATO “partner” nations, along with Japan and South Korea, in East Asia. Mongolia participates in United Nations global peacekeeping operations and has more than 1,000 peacekeepers deployed in Africa.

Mongolia sent troops to Iraq from 2003 to 2008, and currently has more than 200 troops in Afghanistan serving together with American forces.

All in all, Mongolia has maintained a constructively engaging relationship with the U.S. However, more can and should be done in enhancing bilateral interaction.

In particular, the U.S.-Mongolia economic relationship needs to evolve from one largely based on aid and various types of technical assistance to a partnership based much more on private sector-driven trade and investment.

The Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to raise the American profile and elevate its participation in the region are well-advised. However, without a distinct trade component, they are likely to amount to little more than an empty gesture.

The U.S. efforts need substance, and substance that can count in a concrete and practical way is trade.

To that end, Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., and nine other members of the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bipartisan trade bill concerning the United States and Mongolia.

The proposed Mongolia Third Neighbor Trade Act seeks to deepen the U.S.-Mongolia trade relationship. The bill could play a practical role in ensuring Mongolia’s ongoing economic development by incentivizing targeted economic reforms.

Over the past three decades, the United States and Mongolia have made the strategic choice to forge and defend a relationship based on “shared commitment to freedom, democracy, and human rights.”

That choice must be reinforced with concrete and practical action that can further enhance the two nations’ partnership. Increased trade is the logical step forward.

By Anthony B. Kim researches international economic issues at The Heritage Foundation, with a strong focus on economic freedom. Kim is the research manager of the Index of Economic Freedom, the flagship product of the Heritage Foundation in partnership with The Wall Street Journal. Read his research.

Source:dailysignal.com

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Petro Matad fails to find oil at new well in Mongolia

Petro Matad said it hadn't discovered any oil from a new well in Mongolia.

The Wild Horse 1 well was drilled to a total depth of 1,490 metres.

The well encountered inter-bedded sands and shales throughout the prospective section from 650 metres to the target depth, but no oil shows were observed, the company said.

Post-well analyses would focus initially on determining the ages of the formations drilled and the reservoir and source-rock potential.

Petro Matad said its current cash balance was more than $25m and that it was fully funded for its 2019 drilling programme.

Source:Petro Matad

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Rio cuts Iran ties amid Mongolian sovereign risk

Rio Tinto will divest another contentious African asset as the company's leadership conceded its Mongolian copper venture was experiencing sovereign risk challenges and was complicating the company's shift away from fossil fuels.

Rio announced on Monday it would sell its 68.8 per cent stake in Namibia's Rossing uranium mine to China National Uranium Corporation for a sum that could range between $US6.5 million and $US106.5 million.

Rossing is the latest in a string of unwanted Rio assets to be divested, and recent experience suggests there is a strong chance the proceeds from the sale will be returned to shareholders just as the proceeds of Australian coal divestments have been in the past two years.

But the Rossing sale will also liberate Rio from a contentious governance issue given the investment arm of the Iranian government was a fellow shareholder in the Namibian mine.

The Iranian Foreign Investments Company owns 15.29 per cent of Rossing and while it has not had directors on the Rossing board nor purchased Rossing uranium in recent years, the relationship was uncomfortable for Rio in the context of sanctions imposed on Iran by western nations including the US.

Those sanctions were lifted to some degree in 2015 when Iran agreed with nations including the US, Germany, Russia and the UK, to reduce its nuclear capabilities, but the sanctions werereinforced this month by US President Donald Trump.

The sale continues the shrinking of Rio's presence in the developing world, which has been marred by scandals in Guineaand Mozambique.

Speaking in Sydney on Monday, Rio chairman Simon Thompson said those scandals had clearly "dented" Rio's reputation, while chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques was frank about challenges Rio was still facing in the developed world, including at the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia.

'We do have some challenges'

The relationship between Rio and Mongolia appears to have deteriorated in 2018 with Mongolia seeking changes to interest rates on loans, reviewing the 2009 investment agreement that governs Rio's investment in the mine, and changing the power supply rules that Rio must abide by.

Mr Jacques has traditionally expressed confidence that common sense will prevail in Mongolian politics despite the emotion surrounding the $US5.3 billion expansion of Oyu Tolgoi, which is widely viewed as a bellwether for foreign investment in the developing nation.

But on Monday Mr Jacques named Mongolia as one of two places Rio was seeing sovereign risk.

"We do have some challenges, we have sovereign risk challenges in our Minerals Sands businesses in Africa and in Mongolia," he said, during a presentation to civil society groups in Sydney.

Mongolia's decision to compel Rio to source Oyu Tolgoi's power from within Mongolia, rather than continuing to import power from neighbouring China, means the mine will almost certainly require a new coal-fired power station, with the Mongolian government keen for the station to built in the Tavan Tolgoi coalfield.

Mr Thompson described Oyu Tolgoi's likely reliance on coal-fired power as an "intractable problem" for a company that had sought to distance itself from fossil fuels by selling its coal mines.

"The decision to disinvest from fossil fuels was informed by our view on the supply and demand outlook for thermal coal and the opportunity that we saw to sell our coal assets for full value and to redeploy the capital into sectors where the outlook is better, in a carbon-constrained world," said Mr Thompson on Monday.

"We do face some intractable problems, including our reliance on coal-fired power in Mongolia and in South Africa. But in both cases, our operations clearly bring huge economic and social benefits, and play a major role in poverty alleviation in two relatively poor countries."

The Rossing sale comes barely two weeks after Rio netted $US576 million ($799 million) from the sale of a wharf and nearby land in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Rio said the $US6.5 million was payable upon completion of the deal, and the total transaction cost could rise as high as $US106.5 million depending on uranium spot prices and the profitability of Rossing between now and 2025.

The transaction comes after a 44 per cent rally in uranium prices since April.

While still at very low levels by historic standards, the price rally has followed supply curtailments by Canadian producer Cameco and Kazakhstan's state-owned producer Kazatomprom, which floated a minority portion of its shares for the first time earlier this month in Astana and London.

Source:www.sharesmagazine.co.uk

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Concert held in Ulan Bator to promote China-Mongolia friendship

A concert on the theme of China-Mongolia friendship was held here on Tuesday night, attracting thousands of Mongolians and representatives of Chinese citizens living in Mongolia.

The concert, entitled "Wind from the East: Charm of the Silk Road" co-organized by the Chinese embassy in Mongolia and the Chinese Cultural Center in Ulan Bator, aims to strengthen cultural ties between the two countries and friendship between the two peoples.

"China and Mongolia are good friends and good neighbors," Charge d'affaires ad interim of the Chinese embassy in Mongolia Yang Qingdong said during the opening ceremony of the concert.

"In recent years, relations and cooperation between our two countries have been developing rapidly in a wide range of areas, especially culture. The concert is an example of deepening cultural relations between the two countries," he said.

More than 100 popular Mongolian singers, musicians and dancers participated in the performance and presented a mix of Chinese, Mongolian and world famous works.

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A Step Forward for Conservation in Mongolia?

Balanced between the Russian and Chinese superpowers, both of which are mineral- and energy- hungry, Mongolia is rich in resources. Three million people share a landmass one-sixth the size of the United States. Because of the sparseness of the population, several of its ecosystems are complex enough to host rare and endangered large mammal species. Wild camels, for example — distinct from their domesticated cousins used for transport and food — shyly evade human contact in southern Mongolia. An aboriginal herding tradition is surviving even as it changes. Even though dirt bikes (rather than horses) are often used for herding, for example, traditional grazing and hunting routes are still used because the land is not parceled into private property.

Even domesticated animals roam wide swaths of land. Uninterrupted by the fences and barbed wire that are so ubiquitous in the US West that we hardly notice them anymore, the Mongolian steppe stretches the imaginations of outsiders.

The contest over land use in Mongolia will have major impact on species survival, as well as geopolitical importance for the Chinese and Russian economies. This November and December, the Mongolian parliament is discussing whether to almost double the size of the Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area, from around 900,000 hectares more than 1,500,000. In Western Mongolia, the Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area is the only protected area of the Dzungarian Gobi. This summer, we traveled to the Gobi protected areas with Ganbaatar Oyunsaikhan, chief administrator for the Great Gobi B, and G. Dovchindorj, a biologist and conservationist who works to protect the wild Bactrian camel.

In Great Gobi B, shin-high scrub and stipa grass transition into desert macadam. Springs become small rivers, die on the surface, and emerge as oasis grass and tamarisk arroyo bottoms. Wild takhi horses native to the Mongolian steppe, previously held in captivity in European zoos, have been reintroduced through collaboration between Mongolian officials and international conservation groups, like the Prague Zoo and the International Takhi Group. These species join wild ass, gazelle, ibex, wolf, snow leopard and mountain sheep in the area.

Oyunsaikhan wanted to show us every inch of the area that he is charged with protecting in southwestern Mongolia. He is a fierce conservationist. About eight years ago, he realized that the park wasn’t big enough to provide a safe habitat for all its animals. “We had an especially hard winter in 2009-2010,” Oyunsaikhan said. “During harsh winters and droughts, the wild ass in Great Gobi B needed to extend their range in order to survive. They left the park in search of sufficient food, and because of this, became vulnerable to poachers.” He and others began to lobby for an expansion of the park.

In addition to land, mineral deposits of gold, copper and coal are abundant in Mongolia. Chinese, Russian, US and Canadian companies are developing extensive extractive sites, sometimes in joint ventures with the Mongolian government. The Mongolian mining minister doubled the amount of land available for exploration and extraction in 2017 to 20 percent of Mongolia’s overall land base. This may accelerate coal extraction, because Mongolia sits atop the 15th largest coal reserves in the world.

In the South, huge coal mines feed Chinese industries through veins of transport along hurriedly constructed roads teeming with exhaust-belting mega-trucks. Copper, gold and coal together comprise the lion’s share of Mongolian exports and about a third of its gross domestic product. Domestic energy is dominated by coal-burning stoves, making Ulaanbaatar one of the most polluted capital cities in the world.

Unlike the Umnugobi province, where the Great Gobi A Strictly Protected Area is located, Khovd province, home to Great Gobi B, is not mined for gold, copper or coal. While this may be beneficial to the ecosystem, there is a catch: There are fewer resources available for conservation. Mining interests are mandated to fund “conservation offset” projects, but these funds are controlled by the provincial authorities, not the central government. Therefore, the localities with the most success in conservation funds are those that allow extensive mining. “In Great Gobi B, we have no mining and far fewer tourists,” said Oyunsaikhan. “Which unfortunately means far fewer dollars for conservation.”

In addition to the conservation offsets required of mining corporations, Western nonprofits have jumped into the conservation game in Mongolia since the retreat of the Soviet empire. Groups like The Nature Conservancy have funded efforts to try to prevent species extinction, especially of some of Mongolia’s amazing and rare large mammal species, like the snow leopard. As Oyunsaikhan pointed out, such conservation dollars are often tied to areas that attract tourists. The Nature Conservancy has also, though, jumped into the “mining mitigation” game, advising the Mongolian government on how to use conservation offsets through its “Mitigation Design Tool,” which implies that there is a win-win strategy that can encompass both mining development and conservation.

The problem is that conservation offsets do not actually undo the harm that mines have done. There has been scant attention paid to mining reclamation in Mongolia, and little effort to demand cleanup or reparations from any of the damage done by extraction industries in the decades of Soviet control. A small group of Mongolian and Russian scientists has teamed up with the Southwest Research and Information Center, a small New Mexico-based think tank that focuses on repairing the damage done by mining. This team has focused on proposing a reclamation plan for the Oyu Tolgoi gold and copper mine 200 kilometers East of the provincial capital Dalanzadgad.

If conservation efforts are going to succeed in the future, the Mongolian government will have to figure out how to solve the paradox rooted in the fact that provinces have an incentive to authorize further extractive development. Conservation offsets required of mining companies are the most lucrative source of money to help preserve and restore the complexity of the multitude of ecosystems across the vast country. At the same time, Mongolian sovereignty on this issue is compromised by the fact that large nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and international donors can set the agenda for preservation through their programs and deep pockets, unless there are strong and independent directives coming from inside Mongolia.

Mongolians trace their conservationism back to the Ikh Zasag legal code of Genghis Khan eight centuries ago. Environmental safeguards, like protection of air and water, were integrated into the overall systems of laws — unlike in Western constitutions centuries later, when environmental regulations were added as an afterthought, in many cases, decades or centuries after the original legal frameworks were written. In Chinggis Khaan’s Mongolia, clean air and water and protected sacred sites were not seen as separate from laws governing the conduct of people.

Conservationist impulses in governance continued thereafter; Mongolia established the world’s first national park in the late 18th century, for example, while the bourgeois democracy concurrently being born in France would not be as visionary on the need for the protection of land for well over a century. Mongolia would not be integrated into the global industrial economic system that treats land and resources as disposable until becoming a satellite state of the Soviet Union in 1921.

Great Gobi B, a Strictly Protected Area, continues to have stringent restrictions on development. The Ministry of the Environment and Tourism administers the protected areas — an illustration of how closely conservation efforts have become tied to tourism and the funding of international environmental NGOs. National conservation parks, nature reserves and monuments offer somewhat less protection than Strictly Protected Areas. As the world’s appetite for Mongolia’s mineral resources becomes more insatiable, environmental protection practices could  become a key issue of national sovereignty for the Mongolian state, which spent much of the last century under the control of the Chinese empire or as a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

The parliamentary vote on expanding the Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area will be an important view of what it is to come.

By Michael Berman

Source:https://truthout.org/articles/a-step-forward-for-conservation-in-mongolia/

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Mongolian central bank increase lending interest rate

<Monetary policy statement:

Monetary Policy statement:

Increasing the policy rate

Number: 2018/04

Effective date: 27 November 2018

At the unscheduled meeting held on 27 November 2018, the Monetary Policy Committee decided to increase the Policy rate by 1.0 percentage point to 11 percent.

As of October 2018, annual inflation measured by the consumer price index has reached 6.3 percent nationwide and 6.8 percent in Ulaanbaatar city. Although the price of commodities remained relatively high and economic growth reached 6.7 percent in the third quarter, exceeding previous expectations, uncertainties in the external sector remain elevated.

Approval of next year’s budget with a relatively high level of deficit, the US Federal Reserve’s decisions to raise its federal funds rate, and the People’s Republic of China’s action to limit its coal imports, are adversely affecting the balance of payments and thus creating pressures on the exchange rate. Hence, considering the uncertainties in the external sector, with the intention to preserve economic recovery at a medium term sustainable path, the Monetary Policy Committee decided to increase the policy rate, during its unscheduled meeting.

The decision is consistent with the Bank’s mandate to keep inflation rate around the medium term target rate and is intended to increase yield for assets in togrog, to support credibility of the national currency, and to sustain macroeconomic stability in the medium term.

The Bank of Mongolia decided to issue central bank bills with maturities of 28 weeks, starting from December 2018.

Extracts of the meeting minutes will be released in two weeks on the Bank of Mongolia’s website.

MONETARY POLICY COMMITTEE OF MONGOL BANK, MONGOLIAN CENTRAL BANK

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Across China: The return of the Mongolian horse

HOHHOT, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Agula, a herdsman, couldn't wait to buy a pickup truck for his horse Ajinai. Next summer, Ajinai will be able to take a ride on the truck to compete in racing events across the grasslands.

"Herders only rode horses when they had to travel to faraway places. But now, even horses can take a ride as our life gets better," said Agula's grandfather, Arbuje.

Arbuje has lived his whole life in East Ujimqin Banner of Xilin Gol League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In Mongolian culture, horses are so important that there are more than 300 words for them and a further 200 just for their color.

"The Mongolian horse used to be a means of production and life, and a partner that we ethnic Mongolians couldn't live without," Arbuje said.

"For Mongolians, an ethnic minority on horseback, our life has been attached to horses. Horses were an important battle force, a transport means, as well as the theme of many poems and our close friends in life," he added.

However, in the late 1990s, with motorcycles and cars becoming commonplace, horses gradually withered in Mongolian life. The number of horses owned by herdsmen in the region fell from 2.4 million in 1975 to less than 700,000 in 2007.

Agula was born in the 1990s. When he grew up, horse-riding saw an revival. Six years ago, he came back to his hometown after graduating from college. He fell in love with horse-riding, a skill that he should have learnt when he was a child, when he mounted a horse for the first time.

He then started to raise and train horses, and take part in horse-racing events. He would always ride a horse, instead of a motorcycle, unless it was urgent.

Agula treats his two horses like his children, scheduling time to feed them grass and water, and preparing a special diet when it is competition time. He also pacifies them when they are in a bad mood.

"We need horses on the grassland. Mongolian horses are not simply tools, but one of the most important cultural carriers for Mongolians," he said.

Raising horses also unexpectedly brings fortune to the grassland.

Burenjargal, a herdsman in Borigen village of Xilinhot, raises 60 horses on his 533-hectare farm, and earns nearly 200,000 yuan (about 28,858 U.S. dollars) from horse-raising a year.

He takes 20 horses to provide rides for tourists at scenic sites during travel season in summer, from which he can earn 70,000 yuan in three months.

He also sells mare's milk, one of the specialities on the grassland. With its stomachic and blood circulation activating function, the milk is so popular he can't even meet demand.

Now, more and more people are raising horses, not as a production tool, but as a cultural carrier. So far, the number of horses has climbed to 848,000 in Inner Mongolia. An international expo on horse-raising will also be held next year to further boost the industry.

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Blackout hits western Mongolia

A total of 50 soums (administrative subdivisions) in four provinces of western Mongolia suffered a power blackout on Sunday, Xinhua reported.

Mongolian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said in a statement on Sunday evening that a 330 kilo volts (kv) power line was broken down by strong winds.

Relevant officials are working to restore electricity within 48 hours, the NEMA said.

According to the National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring, strong winds and heavy snow are expected to hit large parts of the country in the coming days.

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Mongolia: small embassies can have a big impact

By Catherine Arnold

Former British Ambassador to Mongolia

Mongolia is everything you expect. Mongolia is also everything you don’t expect. At least that’s what I found as the UK’s Ambassador. The world’s least densely populated country, which was once one of the largest empires in world history, it is a land of immense beauty and rich history.

Mongolia is also a vibrant 21st century democracy. Many issues that matter to Mongolia, matter to us – media freedom, climate change, global peacekeeping. And, it’s quite literally sitting on a gold mine. Home to over 6000 deposits of more than 80 different minerals, Mongolia has the potential to be the richest country per capita in the world.

That means the small, motivated embassy of three UK diplomats and our excellent Mongolian team, covers a huge range of work.

The Permanent Under-Secretary, Simon McDonald, and embassy staff, including our longest-serving member Minnie the Mongolian Mouser (who sadly died earlier this year after 15 years of service).

The UK and Mongolia have recently celebrated 55 years of diplomatic relations and, as Mongolia’s second largest trading partner, our trading relationship matters for both countries. To celebrate the 55th anniversary, we announced:

• the appointment of Julian Knight MP as the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Mongolia;
• that UK Export Finance will increase how much it lends to support suppliers and buyers of UK exports to Mongolia.

Having fretted about meeting our export targets the excellent Department of International Trade team exceeded them.

Cambridge Mask Company’s initial consignment of pollution masks sold out within 24 hrs of the fashion show they were launched at, developing into a thriving collaboration with a Mongolian pharmacy chain.

The mask fashion show also means more people have started to wear effective masks – of whatever brand. The embassy has since taken this to the next level, focussing on supporting the poorer parts of Ulaanbaatar, where pollution levels often go off the international air-quality scale.

This is typical of our work in Mongolia – supporting UK trade is of course an essential part of what diplomats do around the world but the relationship between our 2 countries is about so much more than that.

We work with Mongolia in the UN Human Rights Council, Mongolian troops joined coalitions with ours in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, and Mongolian peacekeepers are currently working across Africa. UK expertise is supporting education reform and a UK funded mobile app and training for border guards is helping to counter the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) here.

The last had swift, positive results, including a 25-fold increase in detection of smuggled, endangered wolf-parts. The Mongolian Foreign Minister spoke powerfully about this at the recent major international conference on IWT, in London.

It’s true that supporting UK trade is important work for diplomats around the world and small embassies can have a big impact. The British Embassy Ulaanbaatar has helped UK companies in Mongolia to secure exports worth many times the total running and staff costs of our embassy.

UK car manufacturer promotional parade for the #InspireMe UK festival.But diplomacy works best when trade is one of many links between the UK and the countries we work in. A key task for diplomats is to fit together the people and pieces to make the UK’s presence overseas much more than the sum of its separate parts.

Find out more:

•  UK in Mongolia on Twitter
•  UK’s relationship with Mongolia
•  Exporting is GREAT

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South Korean company Yuhan-Kimberly assists reforestation in Mongolia

Yuhan-Kimberly, a South Korean manufacturer of sanitary products, said it was joining forces with the Mongolian government to restore a forest and open an observatory tower there.

According to the company, the work to restore deforested areas of Mongolia’s Tujin Nars forest began in 2003. The forest had sustained severe damage after two fires before the local government formally asked Yuhan-Kimberly to take part in the project in 2001.

Since that time, over 10 million trees have been planted. 

The company said the project would not only prevent desertification in Mongolia but would also reduce the amount of fine dust blowing toward the Korean Peninsula.

Yuhan-Kimberly is leading environmental conservation efforts in and outside of Korea through its corporate social responsibility program.

Since 1998, the company has planted trees in government-owned forests, also offering opportunities for people to participate in various environmental activities by working closely with domestic and foreign forest-conservation organizations.

The company has been planting trees in Korea’s metropolitan areas since 2005, including Seoul Forest in Seongdong-gu, and has helped create 12 small forests in residential areas across the country.

Last year, the company opened a forest-cultivation center in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province. The center can produce 45 million seedlings per year, which will facilitate reforestation on the Korean Peninsula, Yuhan-Kimberly said. 

Source:Koreaherald.com

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Mongolia's economy to maintain positive growth next year

ULAN BATOR, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's economic growth has been recovering rapidly thanks to the recovery of commodity prices in the global market and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s economic bail-out program for the country, a Mongolian economic researcher said.

"Mongolia's main economic performance has been improving thanks to the combination of recovery of commodity prices in global market and the three-year Extended Fund Facility of the IMF approved in 2017," Jamsrandorj Delgersaikhan, associate professor with the University of Finance and Economics of Mongolia, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"A recent report released by the National Statistics Office showed that Mongolia's GDP expanded 6.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of this year to 12.8 trillion Mongolian tugriks (about 5 billion U.S. dollars). This is a clear proof of the rapid economic growth," Delgersaikhan said, while expressing his optimism about the country's economic development next year.

"Commodity prices in the global market are expected to remain higher next year. This will give a further boost to Mongolia's economic growth," Delgersaikhan said.

The landlocked country's economy is heavily dependent on commodity exports.

However, domestic political conflict may cause risks to the economic growth, the researcher added.

"For any country, political stability is the basis of socio-economic development. Thus, our authorities should firstly create a stable political environment in order to promote economic growth, diversify the mining-dependent economy and reduce external risks to the economy," Delgersaikhan said.

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Mongolia, Kuwait discuss possibility to cooperate in ‘Belt and Road’ initiative

Foreign Affairs Minister of Mongolia Damdin Tsogtbaatar met with Ambassador of Kuwait to Mongolia Mohammad Faisal Al-Mutairi on November 20.

The Ambassador conveyed greetings of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al Khalid Al Ahmad Al Sabah. He expressed his commitment to work for expanding bilateral economic cooperation and thoroughly using the possibility to cooperate in culture and education sectors and put forward a proposal to hold the 2nd meeting of intergovernmental commission in 2019, Mongolian news agency Montsame reports.

Minister D.Tsogtbaatar said that he is pleased with the appointment of experienced diplomat as Ambassador to Mongolia and asked him to pay attention to expanding bilateral cooperation in economy, trade, investment, environment, infrastructure, road and transportation fields. The Minister also underlined a possibility to cooperate within ‘Belt and Road’ initiative.

Moreover, Mr. Tsogtbaatar expressed an interest to collaborate for training oil professionals in Kuwait and for supporting young diplomats who make innovative ideas and conduct researches in promoting peace and introduced an objective of the ‘Awards for future peace, progress and prosperity’ initiated by him.

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28 Mongolian children with heart disease depart for China to receive free surgeries

ULAN BATOR, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A total of 28 Mongolian children suffering from congenital heart disease departed Wednesday for Beijing, capital of China, to receive free surgeries.

They are the first group of all 47 Mongolian children who will receive free treatment in China this year, according to the Mongolian Red Cross Society.

Last month, cardiologists from Beijing Anzhen Hospital and Inner Mongolia People's Hospital arrived in Ulan Bator to conduct screening for congenital heart disease for children aged 1-14, and 47 children were selected to receive free heart surgeries in China.

The free treatment is part of the program "Angels Tour -- Belt and Road Humanitarian Rescue Mongolia Action for Children with Severe Diseases," a humanitarian aid program launched last year by the Chinese Red Cross Foundation(CRCF).

As planned, a total of 100 children with congenital heart disease will receive free surgeries in China. Last year, 53 young patients were treated in Chinese hospitals, with the CRCF covering all the necessary costs. Enditem

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IMF Reaches Staff-Level Agreement on the Sixth Review of Mongolia's Extended Fund Facility

The views expressed in this statement are those of the IMF staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF’s Executive Board. Based on the findings so far, staff will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, will be presented to the IMF's Executive Board for discussion and decision.

• Growth remains strong, led initially by buoyant external conditions and increasingly by a recovery in domestic demand. The fiscal deficit is improving much faster than expected, allowing government debt to fall sharply. The authorities are on track to meet all macroeconomic targets for end-year.
• Two important vulnerabilities are that international reserves and bank capital are still not at appropriate levels. Macro-economic policies should be used to dampen high credit growth and help build external buffers. Meanwhile, it is crucial that banks complete the recapitalization efforts started in 2017.
• For 2019, program goals are to continue reducing public debt, resume international reserve accumulation, and ensure the banking system is well-capitalized. In addition, it is critical that the authorities strengthen the investment climate to attract the foreign capital necessary for Mongolia’s long-term growth.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff team led by Mr. Geoff Gottlieb visited Ulaanbaatar from November 7-17, 2018 to conduct discussions on the sixth review of the three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement approved on May 24, 2017, in an amount equivalent to SDR314.5054 million, or about US$434.3 million (see Press Release No. 17/193 ).
At the conclusion of the visit, Mr. Gottlieb made the following statement:
“As we reach the mid-way point of the IMF supported program, significant progress has been made by the authorities in overcoming the economic crisis. Growth has revived to over 6 percent, the overall fiscal balance has swung from a large deficit to a small surplus, and government debt has fallen sharply. While the external environment has been supportive with buoyant export demand, the recovery has become broader based with consumption and investment rising sharply. Against this backdrop, the authorities are on track to meet all end-December macroeconomic targets, including the fiscal deficit and net international reserves.
“While welcome, this recovery brings new challenges. Stronger domestic demand conditions are widening the current account deficit, halting reserve accumulation. In response, the Bank of Mongolia should rein in high credit growth through tighter monetary conditions and the introduction of well-targeted macro-prudential measures.
“In the financial sector, the follow-up to the Asset Quality Review that was completed in 2017 is entering its final phase. Those banks that were found to be undercapitalized have until end-December to raise the necessary new capital. Banks that fail to do so will face Central Bank intervention or be resolved as per the Banking Law.
“The authorities are also moving ahead with reforms that will allow for more rapid resolution of non-performing loans, strengthen their Anti Money Laundering framework, and improve the selection and appraisal of public investment projects. Given the importance of attracting more foreign capital, the authorities should also commit to strengthening the business and investment climate.
“The authorities and the IMF team have reached staff-level agreement on the economic policies for completion of the sixth review under the EFF arrangement, which is subject to the approval of the IMF Executive Board. The authorities have committed to several actions, mainly in the financial sector, that will be completed before the Executive Board meeting.”
The team thanks the authorities for their cooperation, constructive dialogue, and hospitality during its stay in Mongolia.

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

PRESS OFFICER: Ting Yan
Phone: +1 202 623-7100Email: MEDIA@IMF.org

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Newly-opened China-Mongolia Friendship Cultural Center to boost ties

ULAN BATOR, Nov.20 (Xinhua) -- The China-Mongolia Friendship Cultural Center opened at the Mongol Tuurgatan Theater in central Mongolia's Tuv province on Tuesday, aiming to promote bilateral cooperation and cultural exchanges.

The opening ceremony was attended by Tuv Province Mayor Jigjid Batjargal and Minister Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Mongolia Yang Qingdong.

"Mongolia and China are longstanding close and friendly neighbors. Our Tuv province has been cooperating with China's several provinces for decades, including Jilin province," Batjargal said at the ceremony.

He hoped that the center will contribute to bilateral ties and cooperation in the cultural sector.

For his part, Yang said, "I am very happy to attend the event. Since the state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Mongolia in 2014, relations and cooperation between China and Mongolia have been developing rapidly in various areas."

The minister counsel1or expressed his readiness to strengthen ties with Mongolia, especially Tuv province.

Head of the theater Dorjsuren Munkbat also voiced his gratitude to the Chinese Embassy in Mongolia for donating sound equipment worth 20,000 U.S. dollars to the cultural center commissioned in mid-October. Enditem

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