Mongolia has national football teams in nine age categories and taking part in international matches. However weather and environmental conditions cause difficulties for trainings. To tackle this issue, a project on establishment of a training centre for the national teams has been initiated by the Mongolian Football Federation (MFF) and is being implemented in Tuv province, said Sh.Jargalsaikhan, Head of Technical Department of the MFF.

The three year project is being financed from the International Football Federation and the ‘Greenfield’ company of Holland will work as general contractor and ‘Derennaran’ as sub-contractor.

An additional football field with retractable roof is planned to be built. Therefore the new training centre will help Mongolia's national teams save their time and expenses training abroad and will create favorable condition to develop football sport locally, said G.Lkhagvasuren, Provincial Director of Physical Culture and Sports Office.

The US said the firm's in-flight entertainment division hired consultants for "improper" purposes and concealed payments to sales agents in China and elsewhere in Asia.

The US said the acts violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Panasonic did not respond to a request for comment.

The payments were made by US-based subsidiary, Panasonic Avionics Corp, between 2007 and 2016, the US said.

In one case, the firm hired a foreign official as a consultant at the same time that the official was negotiating a contract between Panasonic and a government-owned airline in the Middle East.

The official was paid $875,000 over a six-year period, despite doing "little work", according to US documents.

In other cases, Panasonic determined that sales agents in China and elsewhere did not pass anti-bribery certification, but executives "secretly" rehired them as subcontractors, the US said.

Through that process, the employees shielded more than $7m in payments to at least 13 people, the US said.

The US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) said Panasonic also overstated profits in one quarter in 2012 by backdating an agreement with an airline.

The firm has since "separated" several executives involved in or aware of the "misconduct", according to the US Justice Department. It has also improved its internal controls.

The fine includes $143m to resolve the charges from the SEC, a financial regulator, as well as $137.4m for the charges brought by the US Justice Department.

Ireland ranks high with its education quality and curriculum among the European countries and students from Mongolia study in Ireland with their own expenses. Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Sports Ts.Tsogzolmaa proposed Irish side to cooperate in student exchange at government level and the sides agreed to sign a memorandum of cooperation on student exchange within this year. They also talked about possibilities on co-organizing cultural events with Irish cultural agency, exchanging professors in science sector especially in IT field and enriching contents of curriculum.

Ireland has developed equestrian sports highly and this has become the major part of the country's tourism industry. The sides exchanged views on sharing experiences and improving a legal environment for equestrian sports as suggested by the Speaker of the Mongolian Parliament M.Enkhbold.

G.Tuguldur

More than MNT 8 trillion and 780 billion has been estimated to be spent on realizing the objectives and actions reflected in the general guideline. Out of which MNT 5 trillion and 170 billion planned to be financed with public and private sector partnership and private investment.

The general guideline contains a total of 123 policy actions with 20 objectives to be implemented through policies including macroeconomic, sectors’ policy to support economic growth, regional and rural development and environmental, social policy on human development, governance, legal reform, foreign policy and defense sector policy.

Furthermore, the Cabinet supported the appointment of Ambassadors of Mongolia to some countries and decided to submit the proposal to the President. The Government agreed to appoint Enkhtsetseg Ochir as an Ambassador to the Kingdom of Sweden, Batjargal Dambadarjaa as an Ambassador to Japan, Ariunbold Yadmaa as an Ambassador to Canada, Tulga Narankhuu, as an Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Tenger Gonchigzeveg as an Ambassador to the Commonwealth of Australia and Chimguundari Navaan-Yunden as an Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand.

B.Batchimeg

“Tender bid for the heavy-duty highway under a concession agreement has been announced recently,” informed Mr. Bold. In addition, it was reported that Erdenes Mongol JSC and Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC are studying the feasibility study of the road to Khangi-Mandal border checkpoints.

The annual capacity of coal transport in the Gashuunsukhait route is 21-22 million tons and a total of 17.1 million tons of coal was transported in this route as of the end of 2017. “In the future, there is a possibility to transport 30 million tons of coal a year through Gashuunsukhait checkpoint and thus, the establishment of twin roads is necessary,” Mr. Bold highlighted.

Thus, the company has decided to distribute dividend of 29 percent of its net profit or MNT 50 per share. However, the founders of the company, four major shareholders, announced that they have decided to distribute 80 percent of their dividend to other shareholders during the meeting, the Market info highlighted. According to the decision, MNT 33.88 million or MNT 127 per share will be distributed to other shareholders who hold a total of 26,544,058 shares.

Last year, the company conducted 16.6 percent of stock trades and 29 percent of bond trades that took place at the MSE, the company’s management reported. In addition, the management team highlighted that the company served as the underwriter for APU JSC’s M&A with Heineken, which was a significant task for the company.

From its financial outcomes, it is seen that the company earned MNT 2.24 billion revenue and net profit of MNT 1.1 billion or MNT 80.2 per share.

Although the profit indicators are positive, the Board of Directors decided not to distribute dividend to its shareholders as the company is requiring more investment. Currently, BDSec is working on a dual registration of TSX-listed Erdene Resources Development Corp and IPO of Ard Daatgal LLC.

Oyunbayar.N

The NGO, based in Berlin, Germany, has over 100 chapters worldwide, including Mongolia. The Secretariat of the NGO urged Kh.Battulga to cease threats to fire the country’s top watchdog.

The president has recently called for the resignation current IAAC Commissioner General Kh.Enkhjargal as the six-year term of his predecessor concludes. Kh.Enkhjargal became the acting Commissioner General, taking over for his predecessor. Even though the current commissioner is slated to serve until 2022, the president argues that since he is an acting commissioner, he must be replaced.

“Mongolia’s poor score on this year’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) underlines the need to strengthen anti-corruption efforts nationwide, not weaken them,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, chair of Transparency International. “The CPI should not be used as a bargaining chip by the president to undercut the authority of national, independent anti-corruption agencies.”

The president used Mongolia’s slipping CPI score as one of the reasons to fire and replace the current commissioner.

The NGO underlined in the statement that a well-financed and independent anti-corruption agencies, like the IAAC, can be strong weapons in the fight against corruption. However, these agencies need support from national governments, including the judiciary and law enforcement systems in order to be successful, it stated.

Earlier this year, Transparency International released the 2017 CPI, which scores and ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Mongolia had a score of 36, highlighting the corruption problem in the country.

“The CPI has been criticized in Mongolia as a reflection of the poor performance of the IAAC. However, the CPI is not an adequate tool to measure the performance of any institution in a country, including the IAAC. Instead, the CPI looks at the general perceptions in a country,” the statement by the NGO’s Secretariat read.

According to the NGO, any interference with the proceedings of autonomous anti-corruption agencies could potentially backfire, resulting in additional negative perceptions and even lower CPI scores.

Citing a diplomatic source, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported the intention is being conveyed to the North through the two countries, which have close diplomatic relations, adding hopes have emerged of a possible Japan-North Korea summit following the US-North Korea summit scheduled for May or early June.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on March 26 that Japan was exchanging views with the North over holding a summit via diplomatic channels in Beijing.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Abe in their telephone talks Sunday that Kim expressed his willingness to hold a dialogue with Japan during an inter-Korean summit on Friday between Moon and Kim.

Asahi also quoted a North Korea expert as saying that North Korean authorities intend to hold a summit with Japan, as long as they hold a successful summit with the United States, speculating that the North is reviewing how it will respond to the issue of Japanese nationals kidnapped decades ago.

The Abe administration hopes a Tokyo-Pyongyang summit will provide an opportunity to make progress toward resolving the issue of the North's abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the North's nuclear and missile programs.

But Japan is also expected to take a cautious stance in holding a dialogue with the North as there is a possibility of Pyongyang taking advantage of a summit with Tokyo to seek economic support from Japan.

Citing multiple sources, the Japanese newspaper said the North is mulling a strategy of talking to the United States and Japan mainly for its security and economy, respectively, and is expecting to receive US$10 billion to US$20 billion in economic aid if the normalization of bilateral ties between Japan and North Korea materializes. (Yonhap)