China, Mongolia agree to strengthen parliamentary cooperation www.xinhuanet.com

BEIJING, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Top Chinese legislator Zhang Dejiang on Tuesday met with L. Enkh-Amgalan, deputy chairman of the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia in Beijing, with the two sides agreeing to strengthen parliamentary cooperation.

Mongolia to receive 100 asylum seekers annually www.news.mn

The Standing Justice Committee has backed a draft resolution about receiving asylum seekers from 2018-2020. According to the draft resolution presented by the government, Mongolia will annually receive up to 100 from 2018-2020. The following quotas have been imposed; up to 30 from Russia, up to 30 from China and up to 40 from other countries.

Positive changes emerge in economy www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ According to the review of implementation of the third phase of the IMF's Extended Fund Facility, Mongolia's economic growth was higher than expected, reported Geoff Gottlieb, head of IMF's working group.

Elon Musk's huge Falcon Heavy rocket set for launch www.bbc.com

US entrepreneur Elon Musk will attempt to fly the world's most powerful rocket later from the Kennedy Space Center.

His Falcon Heavy vehicle is designed to have more than twice the lifting capacity of any existing launcher.

Because of the historic high failure rate of maiden flights, the rocket will only carry a dummy payload, however.

Mr Musk has decided this should be his old cherry-red Tesla sports car. A mannequin wearing a space suit will be strapped to the driving seat.

The entrepreneur says David Bowie's classic hit Space Oddity will be looping on the radio in the roadster as it is hurled into an elliptical orbit that stretches out to Mars' orbit around the Sun.

"[The car will] get about 400 million km away from Earth, and it'll be doing 11km/s," he told reporters in a briefing on Monday. "We estimate it will be in that orbit for several hundred million years, maybe in excess of a billion years."

The car will be sent towards Mars' orbit - but there is little chance it will hit the planet
Thousands of spectators are expected to descend on Florida's Space Coast to witness the ascent, which could occur as early as 13:30 EST (18:30 GMT).

Mr Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, has given itself three hours to get the vehicle up on Tuesday. If technical glitches lead to a postponement, a second attempt will be made on Wednesday.

The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 vehicles strapped together. But the triple-booster configuration has demanded a number of specific alterations, including a strengthening of the central core booster.

The 27 Merlin engines at the base of the rocket should be capable of generating almost 23,000 kilonewtons of thrust - slightly more than double that of the world's current most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy, which is operated by US competitor United Launch Alliance.

Rocket graphic comparison
The 70m-tall Falcon Heavy is designed to put up to a maximum of 64 tonnes in low-Earth orbit. That is like putting five London double-decker buses in space.

In reality, however, the Heavy would rarely be asked to raise so much because SpaceX intends to land the rocket's boosters back on Earth after launch and the fuel required to do this necessarily negates some performance. But the rocket's immense thrust does open up some fascinating new possibilities. These include:

much bigger satellites for use by US intelligence and the military. The scale of these satellites is limited by current rocket performance.
large batches of satellites, such as those for Mr Musk's proposed constellation of thousands of spacecraft to deliver broadband across the globe.
bigger, more capable robots to go to the surface of Mars, or to visit the outer planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, and their moons.
putting up huge telescopes. Hubble's successor, the James Webb telescope, is having to be folded origami-like for its launch in 2019
At the moment, the Falcon Heavy only has a handful of bookings on its manifest.

Two of these are for large telecommunications satellites that must be thrown up into a geostationary orbit some 36,000km above the Earth.

"These satellites are over six tonnes, knowing that the capacity of the rocket is eight tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) - if it is fully reused," Rachel Villain, from the leading space consultancy Euroconsult, told BBC News.

"So, obviously, the objective must be to fully re-use the rocket, otherwise the capacity to GTO is 20 tonnes which is a lot to fill."

She added: "The main targets are possibly the US government and those proprietary constellations. And when I say US government, I mean both beyond Earth orbit (Nasa) and the US Department of Defence, because SpaceX is now a recognised supplier to the DoD for classified and non-classified missions."

The conundrum for the agency and legislators in Washington DC is that this Space Launch System, as it is known, is still some years away from entering service (in a 70-tonnes to LEO configuration); but more than that - it will probably cost about $1bn per flight. Mr Musk says his Falcon Heavy will cost just $90m per flight.

Many commentators are already asking how Congress can justify the considerable extra expense of the SLS when a much cheaper alternative is about to become available.

And Mr Musk is not the only entrepreneur developing a commercial heavy-lift solution that promises to dramatically undercut the SLS on cost.

Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon.com, is working on a rocket he calls New Glenn, which should be able to put 45 tonnes in low-Earth orbit. He has even teased something more powerful still, called New Armstrong.

China chases oil benchmark to knock US off global perch www.asia.nikkei.com

SHANGHAI/TOKYO -- China is almost ready for its next step toward full-fledged superpower status: launching crude oil futures trading.

Mongolia-US diplomatic ties 30th anniversary celebration wraps up www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Celebration of the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Mongolia and the United States was officially closed last week.

Egypt, Mongolia discuss enhancing economic bilateral cooperation www.dailynewsegypt.com

The executive chairperson of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI), Mona Zobaa, discussed with Mongolian state secretary of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Davaasuren Damdinsuren, the activation of the recommendations issued by the first session of the Egyptian Mongolian Joint Committee, as well as the Executive Programme for Cultural, Scientific, and Technological Cooperation until 2018.

Mongolia's largest copper mine co. opens risk awareness center www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's largest copper and gold mining company Oyu Tolgoi LLC has opened its Risk Demonstration Center here, local media reported on Tuesday.

IMF Reaches Staff-Level Agreement on the Third Review of Mongolia’s Extended Fund Facility www.imf.com

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff team led by Mr. Geoff Gottlieb visited Ulaanbaatar from January 24 to February 6, 2018 to conduct discussions on the third review of the three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement approved on May 24, 2017, in an amount equivalent to SDR314.5054 million, or about US$434.3 million (see Press Release No. 17/193 ).

At the conclusion of the visit, Mr. Gottlieb made the following statement:

“The economy is doing better than expected led by commodity exports and a pick-up in domestic demand. Growth is now projected at 5.0 percent in 2018 and 6.3 percent in 2019. The government’s adjustment program, supported by a $5.5 billion IMF-supported package, is showing positive results with the successful roll over of external bonds maturing in 2017 and 2018, a $1.8 billion increase in reserves, and a sharp reduction in government debt. These developments have resulted in a largely stable exchange rate, a fall in interest rates, and have greatly improved the government’s debt service schedule. Nevertheless, the growth outlook is subject to risks including a fall in external demand for commodities and higher fuel prices. In light of these risks and still limited buffers, fiscal and monetary policies should remain prudent.

“Macro-economic performance under the program has been positive, with all quantitative targets met by large margins. Fiscal results have been much better than expected, supported by stronger revenues and tight expenditure control. The overall fiscal deficit in 2017 was 1.9 percent of GDP compared to the target of 10.6 percent and 17 percent in 2016. The authorities’ program for 2018 envisages continued prudence in the deficit, while strengthening tax administration through new tax laws and improving budgetary controls on concessions, public investment projects and the operations of the Development Bank of Mongolia. The fiscal over-performance has provided some room for adapting program policies including a rise in civil service salaries in 2019 after several years of restraint.

“The authorities are moving ahead with the strengthening of the banking system and it is crucial that the key steps are implemented as planned. Important legal reforms including the Banking law and Bank of Mongolia law have been passed, a new deposit insurance law is expected shortly, and improvements to the regulatory and supervisory framework are under way. The results of the comprehensive Asset Quality Review have been communicated to banks individually and they are now in the process of preparing plans to reinforce, where needed, their capital adequacy. A law on bank recapitalization that delineates, in line with international best practice, when public funds can and should be used will be introduced in coming months. The authorities will also move ahead with putting in place an NPL resolution framework that will allow for more rapid improvement in banks’ balance sheets.

“The authorities and the team have reached staff-level agreement on the completion of the third review under the EFF arrangement, which is subject to the approval of the IMF Executive Board.

“The team thanks the authorities for their cooperation, constructive dialogue, and hospitality during its stay in Mongolia.”

Public trading sees an increase at the MSE www.gogo.mn

The Financial Regulatory Commission reported that public trading at the Mongolian Stock Exchange (MSE) increased rapidly in the past year.