The latter received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Portuguese Republic to Mongolia, Mr. Jose Augusto Duarte, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Spain to Mongolia, Mr. Rafael Dezcallar de Mazarredo, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Swiss Confederation to Mongolia, Mr. Bernardino Regazzoni, and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Croatia to Mongolia, Mr. Dario Mihelin, in this regard.

President Battulga welcomed the ambassadors to Mongolia and encouraged them to make efforts towards developing economic, social, and people-to-people relations with Mongolia from Beijing.

During the one-on-one meetings, President Battulga exchanged views with the ambassadors on ways to fully utilize the opportunities for cooperation in the sectors of food, agriculture, light industries, tourism, and energy. President Battulga also gave brief information on certain projects that are ready for implementation in the above-mentioned sectors and expressed his readiness to connect them with the corresponding officials and support their cooperation with the government.

Putin has already greenlighted the project, Kommersant reports, citing a letter from the presidential aide, Andrey Belousov. The adviser to the Russian leader suggested creating a business-plan for the hub to prove its efficiency. The document is reportedly set to be reviewed by the government by September 1.

The construction of the port in the region has been under consideration since the 2000s.

An additional terminal for passengers and cargo is under construction in the same area, in the coastal town of Pionersky.

The new port could potentially attract a cargo base using the federal government support, Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of INFOLine-Analitika told Kommersant. The analyst stressed, however, that it may still face some difficulties in finding investors.

Sustainable Development Goal 4 aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Director of the UNESCO Beijing Cluster Office Ms. Marielza Oliveira noted that education is key to achieving all the SDGs. She highly appreciated Mongolia’s achievement in education sector and expressed gratitude for introducing new approach to educational services suitable for herders. In her presentation, Ms. Marielza Oliveira highlighted the link between progress in education and sustainable way of living, poverty reduction and economic growth that does not leave anyone behind. Investing in education will help raise climate change awareness, prevent violence, reduce crime, improve health, nutrition and gender equality, innovate and transform economies, providing skills for green jobs. For education to be transformative in support of the new sustainable development agenda, ‘education as usual’ will not suffice, she noted.

Minister of Education, culture, Science and Sports Yo.Baatrabileg delivered presentation on ‘Challenges and Implementation of the SDGs’. As reflected in the Government Action Plan for 2016-2020, Mongolia aims to provide every child with preschool education, develop secondary education system in line with international standards, ensuring quality, improve the vocational education and higher education system and develop lifelong education system. He also emphasized that Mongolia’s investment in early childhood education is among the highest rate in the world, according to the global report by UNICEF ‘A world Ready to Learn’. However, children of remote rural areas, suburban districts and newly settled residents still not fully enrolled in schools and kindergartens.

Following the presentations, representatives of the IPU member states shared the challenges they face in education sector, measures taken in this regard and their experiences in reducing poverty through education.

Ambassador Traian Hristea said “EU and Mongolia have traveled a long road over the past three decades. In 1989 when diplomatic relations were officially established between the two sides, EU was a small Union with no common currency, unified foreign policy or even a single market and Mongolia was on the threshold of democracy. The sides have established stronger partnership with common fundamental principles. EU is the third biggest trade partner of Mongolia although we are geographically very distant. As the Ambassador of EU to Mongolia, I will provide consistent support to the reforms of the judicial and legal systems and civil service, and develop projects mainly on promoting SMEs, ensuring inclusive growth through mining revenues, and combating climate change”

The event provided the public with an opportunity to get to know the EU member states through their tradition and culture, receive detailed information and advice on studying and travelling in the countries and getting Schengen visa, visit a trade fair of EU countries' entities, as well as to enjoy the countries’ cuisine and art performances. Moreover, during the event, information was given on over 20 EU-funded projects being implemented in Mongolia.

EU is Mongolia’s third neighbor, according to the Concept of Mongolia’s foreign policy. Thus, Mongolia has been working on intensifying its relations with EU and its member states in all possible areas. For instance, a meeting of the Ambassadors of EU member states has been taking place regularly in Ulaanbaatar since 2009. Establishment of the Office of the Delegation of the European Union to Mongolia in 2017 opened up an opportunity to elevate bilateral relations and cooperate more efficiently in many more areas.

The works to construct oil refinery in Altanshiree launched in June, 2018 and infrastructure constructions started. On May 24, 2019 the construction of 27-km railway between Sainshand and the construction site of oil refinery has been completed, reported D.Jigjidnyamaa, chief of Ulaanbaatar Railway JVC.

According to D.Jigjidnyamaa, the railway is to play an important role in supplying Mongolia’s fuel needs and is a start of the horizontal axis railroad.

Now, it will be continued by constructions of more infrastructure works, such as auto roads and towers and electrical cables of high tension along the railway. Soldiers of military unit No: 7780 are now working on the construction of 18.8 km high-capacity road.

During his rural trip, President Kh.Battulga visited the military unit No:7780 where he wished success to their works.

The EBRD has made financing of EUR 70 million to Mongolia since the beginning of 2019 and several projects and programs will be carried out in rural areas, said EBRD Vice President Alain Pilloux.

The sides agreed that reconstruction of the road Ulaanbaatar-Darkhan, which takes important position in cooperation, should be completed in the scheduled time. Moreover, the sides shared opinions on upgrading governance in mining sector and cooperating in the areas of infrastructure, agricultural processing industries, farming, animal husbandry, energy, heat supply and tourism in the future.

Open door event was held on May 25, 2019 at Chinggis Khan hotel last week. The event covered information about the school, education program, and other technology trend discussions

In a comprehensive update, the company also outlined that approvals for its Mongolian-compliant Ovoot Feasibility Study updated with the OEDP PFS results were also expected shortly from the same Government agency.

These milestones form the technical basis for all other project permitting and enable Aspire to commence the related environmental studies.

The company has also initiated community engagement and public consultation works as part of the wider environmental and social impact studies and project management plans.

Critically, community stakeholders have combined the Erdenet to Ovoot haul road construction as part of the OEDP mine development works in their broader considerations for support of the project.

Given these developments, Aspire revealed that the OEDP DFS is now expected to hit the streets by the end of 2019 and that it was still on track for the first production of washed coking coal in the first half of 2021.

The company has also entered into a Cooperation Agreement with Ulaanbaatar Tumur Zam Joint Stock Company, or “UBTZ”, who is the operator of the Trans Mongolian rail network, which will guarantee rail capacity for Aspire’s OEDP coal transportation to the Mongolian-China border, 1,500km to the southeast.

Supporting this development, company management recently visited several coal handling and preparation plants in China, which outlined some efficient and low water and power consuming options to treat its Ovoot products.

Aspire has also met with the Mongolian Government owners of the large Tavan Tolgoi coking and thermal coal deposits in the southern part of the country, where synergies may exist for the blending of Tavan’s non-coking coal resources with Ovoot’s premium coking coals.

Preliminary work showed that an attractive value adding opportunity exists for combining the products from both deposits, which will also benefit from a recent initiative to construct a rail line from Tavan Tolgoi to an existing railhead at Sainshand to the east northeast.

The beauty is that Aspire’s Ovoot coal products will travel through Sainshand on route to China, which makes the small city an ideal location for blending of the future coal products from the separate mines, where an industrial park development has been touted.

During April, Aspire said that Chinese State-owned enterprise China Gezhouba Group had provided a Letter of Interest to construct the critical haul road that will link the OEDP to an existing railhead at Erdenet.

The main objectives of this Range States Meeting are

to discuss and review the findings of the above-mentioned study, and to develop a set of recommendations to promote transboundary conservation in those areas,
to review implementation of the current Programme of Work 2014-2020; and
to develop and agree on a new Programme of Work for CAMI covering the period 2020-2026 and update Resolution 11.24 for submission to CMS CoP13 which will take place in February 2020 in India.
The meeting is jointly organised by the CMS Secretariat, the Mongolian Government, the International Academy for Nature Conservation of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN INA) as well as the Michael Succow Foundation with funding from the German Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).