Mongolia ranks 103rd with score of 36; drew back by 16 positions in 2017 compared to the previous year. Previously, Mongolia was ranked at 72nd in 2015 and 87th in 2016.

The index, which ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businessmen, uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. This year, the index found that more than two-thirds of countries score below 50, with an average score of 43.

One of the factors that influenced Mongolia to draw back connects with weakening impartiality of auditing and courts. It is considered that slow process of resolving corruption cases at trials, dismissals without penalty and uncompensated state losses affected to weaken people’s confidence in combat with corruption.

“The deal between the IFC and MBA is to advance sustainable finance and green banking practices in Mongolia through capacity development and knowledgesharing,” according to a February 13 statement from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippine central bank. Under the agreement, MBA will be strengthened as repositories of knowledge on sustainable finance and green banking in Mongolia and in the region.

Vivek Jamwal, practice head of risk and research at Singapore-based Stradegi Investment Management Consulting, says the MOU can help grow awareness of environment, social and governance (ESG) financing and investment. He believes it will pave the way for more green financing over time, and that "asset owners and asset managers will have a choice to allocate to green financing, or to create green fixed income products".

"The next logical step will be measuring the impact on an ESG scale, and hence will pave the way for ESG ratings to be done on those asset owners and asset managers," remarked Mr. Jamwal tells Asia Asset Management.

In addition, the company faced MNT 18 million loss from the foreign exchange rate last year. However, the net profit of Barilga JSC increased by 2.8 times compared to that of 2016 with MNT 397.2 million. The company officials highlighted that their operations restored significantly as they were running on MNT 103 million deficit in 2016.

Berkshire Hathaway reported a record quarterly and annual profit on Saturday.

The Republican law reform, approved in December, cut the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%.

Mr Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, opposed the plan.

In his letter to investors, Mr Buffett said the tax cut accounted for nearly half of the firm's gain in net worth during 2017.

"A large portion of our gain did not come from anything we accomplished at Berkshire," he wrote. "Only $36 billion came from Berkshire's operations. The remaining $29 billion was delivered to us in December when Congress rewrote the US Tax Code."

Last month Barclays, a British bank, predicted that Berkshire Hathaway would be a major beneficiary. It said that after an initial windfall, its earnings could continue to rise by 12% on an ongoing basis.

Passing the bill through Congress was a major victory for President Trump. He called it "the largest tax cut in the history of our country" and a gift to the nation.

The reforms give the vast majority of taxpayers lower tax bills in the immediate future. However those cuts expire in 2025.

Mr Buffett, who believes in higher taxes for the rich, has said he would have preferred a different tax bill.

What does Berkshire Hathaway do?
Berkshire Hathaway has holdings in freight rail, major insurance companies, real estate, newspapers and utilities.

Its investments include Geico, the Kraft Heinz Co, Fruit of the Loom and Acme Brick Company, as well as Northern Powergrid subsidiaries, which serve about 3.9 million customers in the UK.

The firm and its subsidiaries employ more than 367,000 people globally.

Mr Buffett has led it for more than four decades, making his vast fortune.

According to Fortune magazine's ranking of world billionaires, he is worth $87bn, behind only Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, the founders of Microsoft and Amazon respectively.

"The board of directors has approved... the appointment of Maksim Sokov as president of the group, and the board of directors also approved the resignation of Oleg Deripaska as president of the group, but he retains the post of non-executive director," the statement said.

En+ Group owns a 48 percent stake in RUSAL, which was founded in 2000 and has assets in 20 countries, with consumers in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, Japan, China and South Korea.

BMW, the owner of the Mini brand, said it had agreed an outline deal with Chinese manufacturer Great Wall Motor.

Cars made under that partnership will be for the Chinese market.

The deal will not affect BMW's plan, announced last year, to assemble the first electric Minis in Oxford from 2019. Those cars will use electric motors made in Germany.

BMW and Great Wall Motor still have to work out the exact location of their production line and how much they will invest.

BMW already has a joint venture with Brilliance Auto to build BMW-branded cars in China.

As well as two plants assembling cars, the joint venture has an engine plant which includes a battery factory.

Last year, BMW sold 560,000 cars in China - more than double the amount sold in its next two largest markets, the US and Germany, combined.

By Theo Leggett, BBC business correspondent
BMW is an ambitious company. It wants to expand, and it wants a bigger share of the fast-growing market for electric vehicles.

China scores highly on both counts - it has a huge number of consumers, and government policies there heavily favour electric cars.

BMW thinks that in order to take full advantage, it needs a local production base.

So where does this leave Mini's UK factories? Initially at least, the Chinese factory will produce vehicles for the Chinese market.

The cars made there there will be a different model from the electric Mini due to be built in Oxford from 2019, and BMW insists the Mini brand can expand internationally without calling into question its commitment to the UK.

But the announcement may send another signal to the government - that Mini can survive without the UK, and is more than capable of moving production elsewhere if it finds the business climate after Brexit too uncomfortable.

Rio Tinto, the second biggest miner by market capitalisation, has listings in London and Australia, a headquarters in London and an Australian office.

In addition, it has created a commercial and marketing hub in Singapore and three global hubs.

Rio Tinto said in an emailed statement its operating model was not changing, but it was "adjusting where work is done by creating three global hubs" and it was starting a consultation with British employees as some roles would be moved to one of the three hubs. It did not specify where the hubs would be.

Earlier the Financial Times reported the plan.

The biggest miner BHP , which like Rio has a dual structure, is under pressure from activist investor Elliott Advisors to simplify its set-up, but BHP says the evidence so far is that any gains would be less than the cost of change.

Rio CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques said he regularly reviews Rio's structure and is comfortable with it.

136 out of 204 events in total included in the program were implemented last year and 68 will be implemented in the first half of this year. The positive results appeared when key indicators of macroeconomics and society before and after the program implementation were compared.

For instance, the economy rose, budget deficit and the loss in the GDP declined, external trade circulation, export and currency reserve increased, currency exchange rate stabilized, confidence in Tugrug restored and savings in Tugrug rose, Mongolia’s special drawing rights improved as well as conditions met to restore investors’ confidence.

M.Unurzul

The regular meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation will be led by Mongolian Deputy Prime Minister U.Enkhtuvshin and Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergey Donskoy.

The 11th meeting will review the implementation of the protocol of the 10th meeting and address bilateral cooperation on construction of a power plant at Eg River, border region development, road and transport, energy, environment and agriculture sectors.

Moreover, the Sub-Commission on Regional and Cross Border Cooperation will meet to discuss the implementation of the Mongolia-Russia-China Economic Corridor program and bilateral cross border cooperation.

The Sub-Commission meeting will be led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs B.Battsetseg from Mongolian side and Deputy Minister of Economic Development Alexey Gruzdev.
Kh.Aminaa

The notable changes of Trading Rules are as follows:

Closing price to be calculated as a weighted average of the trades within the last hour prior to trading close
Upper price limit for block trade to be removed
New order types such as Fill or Kill, Minimum Fill and Iceberg order to be enabled. 
Changes of Listing Rules:

The regulations for dual-listing including the waivers and exemptions are provided;
Listing criteria and requirements are updated including a new section for mining companies
Listing fees are set to be calculated from the total market capitalization
In order to promote the sustainable activities of listed companies, the companies with operations that promote sustainable development shall receive discounts on their listing and annual fees.
Two new indices start retrospectively from January 2, 2018

Additionally, the MSE has introduced 2 new indices Board I and II (MSE-A & MSE-B). MSE informed that this will allow investors and market participants to understand which board of securities is driving the market performance as well as laying a foundation for introduction of index based products in the future.

Calculation of Board I (MSE A Index) and Board II (MSE B Index) indices start retrospectively from January 2, 2018 with the initial value of 10 000 each and from the start of the year, MSE A Index has gained by 7.9 percent and MSE B Index by 0.8 percent.