Mongolia to improve tax administration with ADB loan www.news.mn

The Board of Directors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of USD 25 million to help Mongolia improve its tax administration and public investment management using information and communication technology (ICT).

US University opens Mongolian language class www.news.mn

For the first time, University of Pennsylvania students can learn Mongolian and delve into a new culture.

ADB to support first distributed renewable energy system in Mongolia www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Board of Directors has approved a USD 40 million loan to develop a 41 megawatt (MW) distributed renewable energy system—a first-of-its-kind in Mongolia using a variety of renewable energy technologies to supply power and heating in the remote and less-developed western regions of the country.

The project will also be co-financed by USD 14.6 million grant from the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF) under the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program in Low-Income Countries, one of the Climate Investment Funds designed to support scaled-up deployment of renewable energy solutions to increase energy access and economic opportunities, and a USD 6 million grant from the Japan Fund for the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JFJCM), which supports the adaptation of advanced low-carbon technologies in ADB-supported projects.

“A clean, reliable, and sustainable energy sector is needed to boost economic growth in western Mongolia while addressing the need to reduce carbon and air pollutant emissions,” said ADB Principal Energy Specialist for East Asia Mr. Shigeru Yamamura. “The 41 MW renewable energy system that the project will finance will not only make the energy sector less carbon intensive, but also help the country’s efforts in meeting its commitment under the Paris climate agreement to reduce carbon emissions by 14 percent by 2030.”

The Upscaling Renewable Energy Sector Project will help develop a 40.5 MW distributed renewable energy system using solar photovoltaic and wind powers with advanced battery storage technology and energy management systems to supply clean and reliable electricity to geographically scattered local towns in western Mongolia, which rely on high-cost and high-carbon-intensive electricity imports from neighboring countries. Meanwhile, the project will also showcase a 500-kilowatt thermal shallow-ground heat pump system, which will supply pollutant-free space heating in public buildings. This system could be scaled up in the future and, ultimately, help mitigate local air pollution during winter.

The distributed renewable energy system financed by the project will help connect more than 258,313 people in the project areas to clean and reliable electricity and heat supply, while a total of 87,968 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually will be avoided by 2023.

The project will also help enhance the ability of the local electricity utilities and related agencies to manage a stable electricity supply. In addition, it will help build a foundation for future private renewable energy investment in western Mongolia by supporting preparation of long-term renewable energy investment plan.

The total cost of the project is USD 66.22 million, with the Government of Mongolia contributing USD 5.62 million. It is expected to be completed by 2023.

The Government of Mongolia has been making efforts to increase renewable energy use since 2000. However, the share of renewable energy in Mongolia’s energy mix remains low at 12 percent. ADB’s assistance for this project will help the government meet its goals under its State Policy on Energy, 2015–2030, which aims to raise the share of renewable energy to 20 percent by 2023 and 30 percent by 2030.

Source: adb.org

ADB approves USD 40 million in loan for 41MW renewable energy system www.zgm.mn

The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Board of Directors has approved a USD 40 million loan to develop a 41 megawatt (MW) distributed renewable energy system, a first-of-its-kind in Mongolia using a variety of renewable energy technologies to supply power and heating in the remote and less-developed western regions of the country. The project will also be cofinanced by a USD 14.6 million grant from the Strategic Climate Fund under the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program in Low-Income Countries, one of the Climate Investment Funds designed to support scaled-up deployment of renewable energy solutions to increase energy access and economic opportunities, and a USD 6 million grant from the Japan Fund for the Joint Crediting Mechanism, which supports the adaptation of advanced low-carbon technologies in ADB-supported projects. “A clean, reliable, and sustainable energy sector is needed to boost economic growth in western Mongolia while addressing the need to reduce carbon and air pollutant emissions,” said ADB Principal Energy Specialist for East Asia Mr. Shigeru Yamamura. “The 41 MW renewable energy system that the project will finance will not only make the energy sector less carbon intensive, but also help the country’s efforts in meeting its commitment under the Paris climate agreement to reduce carbon emissions by 14 percent by 2030.”

Pollution pushes Mongolia's herders to reconsider city life www.theguardian.com

More than a decade ago, Darii Garam, 76, moved to Ulaanbaatar with her children so they could go to school and find work beyond herding animals in the countryside. Now, the pollution, set to worsen in the approaching winter, is getting to her.

“Even just going outside for a second, opening your door, your home fills with smoke, your clothes, everything smells like it,” she says moving around her ger, a spacious and neatly kept traditional Mongolian yurt, to make tea.

Darii lives on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, an area known as the ger district or sometimes, affectionately, the “g district”, where rural migrants have collected over the last two decades. Here, gers and houses built out of wood and other scrap material creep up the hills that box in Ulaanbaatar. Every winter, as many as 220,000 households burn coal to stay warm. When families can’t afford coal they sometimes burn tyres and other scraps.

The hospitals are packed every winter, as thousands of children fall sick. Visibility is so bad that two people can be walking hand in hand and not be able to see each other. Air pollution, or “smoke” as the residents call it, often reaches several times that of Beijing or Delhi.

“I wanted more for my children but the air is prohibitive,” Darii says. “I’ve never seen air pollution like this before… The food, pollution, everything, is really bad in Ulaanbaatar.”

Mongolia’s rural residents have flooded the capital in search of a better life. Now, as pollution worsens, officials and residents are looking for ways to lure people back to the countryside.

Today, Ulaanbaatar, a city designed to accommodate about half a million people, holds three times this number – almost half of the country’s population of three million. Harsh winters have killed off millions of livestock, forcing rural herders to the capital for work.

In 2004, almost 70,000 people moved from rural areas to the city, equivalent to the population of an entire province. Since then as many as 45,000 have moved to the capital annually. Most collect in the ger district, an area officials say accounts for 80% of the city’s air pollution.

Under pressure, the government decided last year to ban migration, and recently extended the ban until 2020.

But high levels of pollution persist. About 15,000 people marched in Ulaanbaatar, last year protesting against the smog, in one of the country’s biggest demonstrations in years. In January, concentrations of PM2.5, breathable airborne particles, reached 3,320 micrograms per cubic meter, more than 133 times the level the World Health Organization deems safe.

“If we do not act, shall we all die burning whatever we want?” asked Batbayasgalan Jantsan, the city’s deputy mayor in charge of green development.

“What are the primary rights of human being?” he asks. “The right to life. The right to a healthy and safe environment. The state is obliged to provide that. The state has to protect its citizens from environmental pollution.”

Many say a migration ban alone is not enough to resolve the pollution problem. The real issue, experts and locals say, is the stark divide between the city and the countryside. Erdeneburen Ravjikh, the former state secretary of Mongolia’s ministry of construction and urban development, is on a mission to reverse this mass migration and repopulate the countryside.

Growing up in the steppe of southern Mongolia, Erdeneburen thought a lot about how to upgrade his rural hometown, Gurvansaikhan. There was no central heating, just coal-fired metal stoves. Getting water required a mile-long trek, and the bathrooms – wooden stalls outside – were brutal during the winter when temperatures fell to as low as -40C. “I used to freeze my arse off,” he says.

Most families lived in gers, and made their living by raising goats and selling cashmere. Many of the people Erdeneburen grew up with have left. He has also spent most of his adult life outside his hometown.

“In order to fight air pollution, we need to develop the rural areas, to make life good so people stay,” he says. “The main reason people move to Ulaanbaatar is the quality of life – having proper heating, proper toilets, good water supply.”

After four years of fundraising, designing, and construction, today, Gurvansaikhan looks more like a suburban neighbourhood dropped in the middle of the Gobi desert. Paved roads cut through the town, lined with solar-powered lamps. Residents share a wastewater treatment plant, a central heating system, and a water plant. City planners have even kept trees and shrubbery alive in the desert.

Officials at the city, provincial and national level are now working on a program to encourage citizens to migrate from Ulaanbaatar to the provinces. “Creating jobs in the countryside is important. This is what citizens want. They say, ‘I want to go back home, but I need a job’,” Batbayasgalan said.

Convincing people to move will take time. More than half of the country’s GDP is generated in Ulaanbaatar. Last year when unemployment in the city was 8.7%, in rural areas it was as high as 10.7%.

Erdenechimeg Sanlig came to the capital from the countryside six years ago with her children, following their oldest daughter to university. She goes home once a year and always finds that not much has changed.

“Having animals is difficult,” she says, sitting on a neatly made bed inside their ger, a traditional Mongolian yurt on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar or tent. A television plays the local news. Next to a microwave, a cabinet holds a cup of toothbrushes and a roll of toilet paper. A pink table decorated with images of Disney princesses, for her three granddaughters, sits on the far side of the tent.

“In the countryside our children would not find jobs. It’s better here to find jobs,” she says.

Still, increasingly more residents in the ger district are growing tired of life in the capital. Many complain about the food, the congestion, as well as the pollution. Before the ban, migration to the capital had already been falling since 2014. Last year, the number of people leaving Ulaanbaatar exceeded the amount moving in for the first time since the 1990s.

Zolzaya Amgalan, 32, and her husband Myanganbaatar Tsend, 41, have been here for the last three years with their son and daughter. When their son was a little more than a year old and struggling to walk, a doctor diagnosed him with rickets, and advised the family take a break in the countryside for a year.

“The difference was obvious. In the countryside the air, food, everything is good for the kids,” Zolzaya said. “If there were more development [in the countryside], of course we would move. Everyone would want to move.”

Bangladesh women entrepreneurs visit Mongolia www.daily-sun.com

A Bangladeshi women business delegation led by Women Entrepreneurs Association of Bangladesh president Nasreen Fatema Awal visited Mongolia to develop trade relation.

Winter greenhouses worth MNT 4.2 billion to be built with financing of Japan www.montsame.mn

Orkhon /MONTSAME/ Hokkaido Eco Village Promotion Project, Japan International Cooperation Agency and Japan’s Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects have initialed a Memorandum of Cooperation on constructing 15 winter greenhouses in Jargalant soum, Orkhon aimag.

MIAT opens its own flight training facility www.montsame.mn

A new training facility opened at the Mongolian Airlines (MIAT) on September 20. The flight attendants and pilots now have the possibility to take emergency and conventional situation training at home, including rescue, warning and serving passengers. First Deputy Director of MIAT N.Ganbold emphasized that before the training were conducted annually at the ‘Aeroflot ‘ in Russia or ‘Korean Air’ in Korea with 150-200 attendants. He said “Training is essential for ensuring safety and stable operation of aviation companies. In order to achieve this goal, we established the training facility, which will save the training costs abroad and give possibility to get additional revenue by conducting training for foreign aviation companies. The possibility to conduct frequent training at home regardless of time will improve service quality and increase safety level of the national airlines.” Director of the Administration and Management Department at the Civil Aviation Authority T.Batjargal said “The ‘Chinggis Khaan’ airport will be moved to the new international airport at Khushigt Valley soon. Regarding to it, we have submitted a request to make the airport in Buyant-Ukhaa as a training center to the government and capital city authorities. It is possible to use the airport as a local airport and international flight training center.”

Hong Kong express rail link launches amid controversy www.bbc.com

A high-speed rail link has been launched in Hong Kong, connecting the territory with mainland China.

Russia to become China’s top supplier of gas soon www.rt.com

One of the world’s longest gas pipelines – the Power of Siberia – which is being created to deliver natural gas from Russia to China, is almost complete. The sides are now getting ready to ink a contract on another major pipeline.
Agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 or the ‘Western Route’ for the supply of Russian gas from the Far East to China might be signed in the first half of 2019, according to Nur Bekri, director of the National Energy Administration of China. The new pipeline will deliver 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.