This marks the first time that a foreign entity has begun to operate an asset manager in Mongolia.

The company was established in December last year and obtained a regulatory license in March, with capital of 526.9 million Mongolian tugrik ($196,100).

Rhinos Asset Management Mongolia during the opening ceremony announced a corporate debt fund of $11 million to invest in debt issued by Mongolian financial technology startup AND Systems. The startup raised $2.8 billion funding from Rhinos in November 2018. Rhinos created Mongolia’s first corporate debt fund in April.

Rhinos said in a statement that the new Mongolian unit aims to lay the groundwork for deal-sourcing capabilities in Mongolia, Russia and Central Asia.

Since 2017, Rhinos has sold Mongolian high-yield products such as funds investing in US dollar-denominated certificate of deposits issued by the Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia, as well as short-term bond funds and exchangeable bond funds.

Chief Executive Chun Myung-ho currently heads Rhinos Asset Management. Founded in 2014, the company has 7.1 billion won ($6 million) in capital as of end-March and invested in global mezzanine equities and derivatives with some 400 billion won in assets under management.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)

GDP

Experts warn that in the coming year, the economic crisis may embrace the global market. Mongolia's economy expanded by 8.6 percent in the first quarter of this year and has seen an unprecedented increase in the last few years. This year's growth is expected to decline, according to the Fiscal Framework Statement. As a result, GDP growth is expected to stand at about 6 percent. The Asian Development Bank and the World Bank are slightly optimistic about the GDP growth of Mongolia with 6.3- 6.9 percent growth estimations. The World Bank forecasted Mongolia's GDP to grow 6.5 percent in 2021. Economic growth is expected to be supported by mining, agriculture, industry, and services.

BUDGET

In 2018, the budget revenue totaled MNT 12 billion. According to the National Statistics Office (NSO), the budget stayed the same in the first four months of this year with a surplus of MNT 285 billion. In 2020, the budget deficit is expected to reach MNT 2 trillion, which is 5.1 percent of Mongolia's GDP. The government is planning to reduce this deficit by almost MNT 1 trillion in 2021. Furthermore, the Ministry of Finance estimated a budget deficit of MNT 728 billion in 2022. Experts expect a sharp increase in revenue to reach this target and for the state budget to be profitable by 2023. Budget revenue is forecasted to be MNT 11.1 trillion next year and to reach MNT 13 trillion in 2022. With the implementation of the tax package, it is estimated that the 2020 budget revenue will increase by MNT 1.4 trillion.

DEBT

By 2020, the government's total debt is expected to exceed half of the total GDP at the current pace, up to MNT 22 trillion. It could then potentially reach MNT 24 trillion by 2022. The government expects to repay a total of USD 2.9 billion in 2021-2024. For example, USD 100-150 million out of the USD 500 million debt of Mazaalai bond will be paid from savings and the residual will be re-financed in 2021. The Ministry of Finance Khurelbaatar Chimed has made some agreements on this issue.

In addition, the social insurance fund is also burdening the state budget. This year, MNT 600 billion will be paid to the social insurance fund. This will increase to MNT 750 billion in 2020 and MNT 875 billion in 2022. Reducing the budget deficit and making the social insurance fund independent is essential in reducing the debt burden. Furthermore, the average foreign trade balance for the next three years will cost about USD 1.5 billion, while the inflation rate will remain at 8 percent. All estimations were included in the policy document approved on the Fiscal Framework Statement by the Parliament.

The airline is to conduct the three-hour flight on every Monday and Thursday, with one-way and round trip airfares of USD 240 and USD 440 respectively.

Mongolia-Kazakhstan trade turnover was counted at USD74.4 million in 2018. The direct flight between Ulaanbaatar and Nur-Sultan is expected to expand business cooperation of the two countries. In addition, bilateral cooperation in other sectors such as tourism, culture, education and humanity has possibilities to develop, said the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Mongolia K.Koblandin.

The meeting was chaired by Mr. D.Khasar, Deputy Director of Neighboring Countries Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and L.V.Shchur-Trukhanovich, Director of the Department of Foreign Economic Activity Development and Regulation at the Russian Ministry of Economic Development.

At the meeting, the parties assessed current situation of regional and cross-border cooperation between the countries and discussed further actions, specifically intensification of cooperation in agriculture, transport, tourism and humanitarian sectors, p

The parties established a Protocol on the results of the meeting and agreed to focus attention to implementation of the decisions.

Huawei’s Russian subsidiary, along with Hong Kong-based Huawei Digital Technologies, will reportedly become the owners of the intellectual property rights for Vokord’s patents on face ID technology and equipment. The newly formed firm will reportedly be called Igl Softlab. The Russian unit of the enterprise is expected to own 99.99999 percent of the newly formed company.

Founded in 1999, Vokord designs software and programming solutions based on computer vision and intelligent video processing algorithms. The company focuses on facial recognition, Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR), video analytics and pattern recognition, video processing, and video enhancement. As of 2017, the company’s revenue totaled 113.2 million rubles (US$1.75 million).

The market for intelligent recognition systems has recently become a highly attractive sphere for investments, mergers, and takeovers. Earlier this year, London-based retail execution monitoring service BeMyEye announced plans to acquire Russian crowdsourcing and image recognition provider Streetbee. In April, Russian state-run Sberbank agreed to acquire a 51-percent stake in Speech Technology Center (STC) from Gazprombank.

Air Force One is expected to land at London Stansted Airport at 09:00 BST.

The Queen will host a state banquet at Buckingham Palace on Monday evening for the president and the First Lady Melania Trump.

Protests are planned across the UK during the visit - including rallies in London, Manchester, Belfast, Birmingham and Nottingham.

Ahead of his visit, President Trump told The Sun he was backing Tory leadership contender Boris Johnson to be the next UK prime minister.

He also told The Sunday Times that Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage should be involved in the government's negotiations to leave the EU.

On Monday, the president will be given a tour of Westminster Abbey and will also meet Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall for tea at Clarence House.

At the state banquet, President Trump and the Queen will be joined by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The Duchess of Sussex will not attend following the birth of her son Archie, who is less than a month old.

Both the president and the Queen are expected to make a speech to guests, which will include prominent Americans living in Britain.

President Trump will be staying at the US Ambassador's residence Winfield House, near Regent's Park in central London.

On Tuesday morning, President Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May will host a business breakfast at St James's Palace.

Business leaders understood to be attending include Barclays CEO Jes Staley, GlaxoSmithKline chief executive Emma Walmsley, BAE Systems chairman Sir Roger Carr and the National Grid's John Pettigrew.

President Trump will then visit Downing Street for further talks with Mrs May, followed by a joint press conference.

Mrs May will raise the issue of climate change with him during the visit, Downing Street has said.

Both the Stop Trump Coalition and Stand Up to Trump protest groups said they would be present.

The Met Police said it had "a very experienced command team" leading the operation to deal with the visit.

The police operation for the president's visit last year was estimated to have cost nearly £18m.

On Wednesday, President Trump will visit Portsmouth to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

He will then fly to Shannon, in Ireland, to meet Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, before going to his golf course at Doonbeg.

Both energy commodities had their fourth weekly decline, with benchmark Dutch gas posting the biggest first-half slump in a decade. That’s exacerbated by a glut of liquefied natural gas cargoes arriving in Europe. Prices have fallen far enough that gas-fired power stations in Germany are making more money than those burning coal, which usually is the more profitable fuel.

“LNG is now so cheap it’s competing with coal almost,” said Caroline Bain, chief commodities economist at Capital Economics Ltd., who sees slowing demand for coal. “It’s not actually falling off a cliff. We think it’s going to be a long slow death rather than tomorrow.”

The price slump is one sign of Europe’s determination to phase out coal as it seeks to slash climate-warming emissions without holding back the economy. Renewables are also in the fight for market share, with onshore wind and solar power “fast becoming cheaper than average power prices in Europe’s largest markets,” according to a research by BloombergNEF.

Front-month Dutch gas prices, a benchmark for Europe, plunged by half this year as record volumes of LNG landed in northwest Europe. Coal for next year has dropped by about a quarter after a mild winter left inventories at European ports unusually high.

“There’s too much coal,” said Hans Gunnar Navik, a senior analyst at StormGeo AS. As “natural gas out-competes coal,” renewable generation is replacing both of them, he said.

The pressure will keep mounting on governments to retire coal, said Daniel Rossetto, managing director of Climate Mundial, a London company that advises on climate-protection programs and emissions trading.

The U.K. hasn’t burned coal for power a record 15 days as it speeds toward phasing out the fuel by 2025. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration announced its exit plan in February, saying it will wean the nation, Europe’s biggest coal market, off the fossil fuel over two decades.

Still, analysts don’t see prices falling much further this year. Bain expects coal to finish this year at $60 a ton, higher than current levels of about $57 for the July contract. Gas prices in Asia, the biggest consumer of LNG and increasingly influential on European markets, may advance 40% to $7 per million British thermal units, she said.

With gas, “there’s scope for rapid demand growth, perhaps partly because of lower prices but also because of the general shift toward cleaner fuels,” Bain said. “We think this is a bit of a seasonal trough at the moment. We are positive on gas and negative on coal.”

(Reporting by Mathew Carr, Jeremy Hodges and Eddie van der Walt).

Foreign trade partners and delegations tend to emphasize the potentials of animal husbandry in Mongolia; however, the agriculture accounts for only 0.04-0.08 percent of direct foreign investment (FDI) in Mongolia. The sheer amount displays the investors’ interest and value in the sector. The agricultural sector, especially, animal husbandry is highly dependent on the weather condition. The sun, wind, and rain affect the number of livestock and benefits of it. The traditional animal husbandry sector has been facing difficulties due to risks including the carrying capacity of a pasture, the low livelihood of herders, and animal diseases.

“Animal husbandry is almost abandoned while the government and foreign investors are focusing on the mining sector. The animal husbandry, the special sector that shows Mongolia’s tradition and history, is being forgotten. There are clear schemes for funding. Mongolia once built the industrial complex when it had 26 million livestock. Now there is nearly 70 million livestock in Mongolia. The Bank of Mongolia should invest in the sector that could help accumulate the foreign exchange when paying with the MNT,” emphasized Mongolian President Battulga Khaltmaa at the Mongolian Economics Forum.

The World Bank estimated that Mongolia needs to develop a standard and certification system for animal husbandry and develop a risk-based monitoring system as soon as possible. The government needs to support the sector with the right policy, solving the system of raw material preparation as well as ensuring animal health.

Officials estimate that about MNT 800 billion worth investment is required in agriculture to boost outcome and prevent potential risks. This will increase profits by MNT 2 trillion and raise agriculture share in the economy to make up 20-30 percent of the total exports.