Mr. L.Bayartulga, State Secretary of MoFALI and Mr. Fred Gorrell, Assistant Deputy Minister of AAFC led their respective delegates at the meeting. Both sides have exchanged information on the current developments in their agricultural sectors and discussed the areas of future cooperation.

As a part of the meeting, the Mongolian delegation visited the Ottawa Research and Development Center and got introduced about the research activities on long-term tillage and cold climate crops. The center presented a part of its rare insect collection, one of the biggest in the world, to the delegations.

Manneken-Pis wearing a deel
Manneken-Pis, the symbol of Brussels folklore, wore a new deel, the traditional clothing of Mongolia, for the opening of the event on November 25 and 26. Ambassador of Mongolia to Belgium O.Och, Mayor of Brussels Philippe Close and other city officials attended the opening.

Manneken-Pis will wear the costume again on December 17, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., according to the event planner.

A “Mongolian Village” has been set up at the center of Winter Wonders to promote arts and crafts and other products made in Mongolia, as well as allow locals to taste Mongolian food while watching Mongolian artists perform. Wool and cashmere producers, tourism companies and restaurants are exhibiting their products at the event, according to the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Mongolia.

“Mongolian gers have been set up in Brussels. This shows that no matter how far or close, Mongolians strive to bring their traditions and cultures closer to Europeans and foreigners and spread positive and correct understanding about their home country,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Relations noted.

Mongolian Village at Winter Wonders in Brussels
Winter Wonder is an annual event held before and during the Christmas holidays with enchanting rendezvous, colorful stalls for stocking up on gifts and treats within a two-kilometer trail, original food tastings, sound and light shows, and attractions including merry-go-rounds on Place Sainte-Catherine, the large wheel, and ice rink at Marche aux Poissons.

This year, Brussel officials paid special attention to its decorations to create “an enchanting and magical setting that can be seen from the satellite”.

Last year, when Mongolia turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for aid as it struggled to pay its debts, growth was just 1 percent.

Finance Minister Chimed Khurelbaatar, who was appointed last month, told Reuters in an interview this week that in the third quarter of 2017, Mongolia's growth was 5.6 percent from a year earlier.

He did not give a full-year projection for this year, but said growth in 2018 should be 4.2 percent, shored up by the $5.5 billion IMF-led rescue package agreed in May.

On Thursday, rating agency Moody's Investors Service said growth should reach 4.2 percent this year.

Mongolia's troubled economy has been lifted by improving coal trade activity, sourced mostly from the Gobi desert in southern Mongolia, less than 250 kilometres from the Mongolia-China border.

Global coal prices have been significantly stronger this year, but Mongolia's ability to profit from this has been hampered by a crackdown on smuggling on both sides of the China-Mongolia border. This has created a huge bottleneck at the border.

"We have higher coal prices, but Mongolia cannot benefit from this," Khurelbaatar said.

He said Mongolia would "work very closely" with Beijing to ease the bottleneck.

Mongolia is in the process of refinancing debts with new bonds now that it is able to set lower rates of interest, said Khurelbaatar. The country is reforming its tax system in a bid to boost revenues, and will launch a 10-25 percent progressive income tax in January.

However, Khurelbaatar said there are no plans to raise the rate of tax on the mining sector, which accounted for 20 per cent of GDP last year, though there are plans to alter the bidding process for mining rights to improve transparency.

Moody's on Thursday maintained its sovereign credit rating for Mongolia at "Caa1 stable".

"Given the improved macroeconomic backdrop and commodity prices, the near-term fiscal and growth targets originally set under the country's IMF's programme have been surpassed," it said.

However, it said Mongolia's "narrowly diversified economy" remained "exposed to commodity price shocks that have resulted in volatile growth and government revenues."

The participants to the reality show are 5 representatives from the public who have never had any exposure to the capital markets before, and they will participate by purchasing securities at the “Mongolian Stock Exchange” based on the advice of professional investment advisors. The show is composed of 7 episodes, each of which lasts 40 minutes and the winner will be the participant who has increased the value of his/her portfolio the most during the show time.

The value of the securities fluctuates in line with the overall market situation as well as the individual operations of joint stock companies and therefore, the investment portfolio of the participants are equally likely to increase or decrease. The purpose of this reality show is to illustrate this reality of the stock market, highlighting not only the upside potential of the market but also its inherent risks. 

“Green Arrow” reality show will be broadcasted on MNB channel every Monday from December 11th, 2017.

On the secondary market for government bonds, 659 bonds with a value of MNT64.8 million were traded.

On the secondary market for government bonds block trading, 1,000 bonds with a value of MNT105.5 million were traded.

On the secondary market for corporate bonds, 951 bonds with a value of MNT95.1 million were traded.

The MSE ALL Index decreased by 1.37 percent to stand at 1,244.57 points. The MSE market cap stands at MNT2,381,559,057,577,022

During the forum presentations on current state of bilateral economic relations, trade and investment and further opportunities of cooperation and increasing trade and investement were made by National Development Agency of Mongolia, MNCCI and Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO). 

In scope of the business forum tete-a-tete meetings were held between businessmen of the two countries and over 40 representatives participated from Mongolian entities including ‘Centerra Gold Mongolia’, ‘Unitel’, ‘Beren’ ‘Hasu Megawatt’, ‘Mongol Em Impex’, ‘Bank of Mongolia’ and ‘Khaan bank’. 

From Slovakian side 27 entities attended from engineering industry, food, agriculture, information technology, telegraph, bank and financial sectors such as “Novas Machinery”, “DB Biotech”, “Solar Slovakia”, “Scout Aviation”, “International Investment Bank”. They expressed interest to cooperate with Mongolian companies.

“We forecast global gold production to increase from 105moz in 2018 to 125moz by 2026, averaging 2.3% annual growth. While a steady pace of growth, this represents a slight deceleration in growth rate compared with the previous eight-year average of 3.1%,” the firm says.

For short-term prices, BMI predicts that they will continue to head higher, averaging $1,300/oz in 2018.

As with many metals, Chinese deals lead gold’s performance when it comes to production and price. According to the business intelligence company, major firms hailing from the Asian giant will ramp up investment in foreign gold mines, as the country’s gold demand growth far outpaces that of production which, BMI says, will stagnate over the coming years at around 16.5moz.

“In 2016, the Asia Pacific region accounted for 44.7% of global gold mining merger and acquisition activity,” BMI estimates, while highlighting that some of the major transactions were carried out by Chinese conglomerate Fosun International, who invested $890 million for an initial 10% stake in Russian gold producer Polyus Gold, as well as Shandong Gold, who purchased a 50% stake in the Veladero mine in Argentina from Barrick Gold for $960 million while committing to advance exploration activities in the area.

Back in 2016, state-owned China National Gold Group paid $300 million for the purchase of the Jinfeng gold mine from Eldorado Gold, while Indonesian firm PT Amman Mineral International paid $1.3 billion purchase of Newmont Mining's Indonesian assets, including the country's second largest copper-gold mine, Batu Hijau.

Australia is another big player in this game. Gold production Down Under is expected to grow, as higher gold prices increase miners’ profit margins and a weaker Australian dollar fosters mine expansions and increased exploration activities by both top and junior miners.

The research firm hints to the performance of Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM), as the key driver of Australia’s positive outlook. The world’s 2nd largest gold miner expects 2017 production at Australian operations to be 1.5-1.7moz, with total spending between $205-240 million.

“We forecast Australia’s gold output to increase from 10.5moz in 2018 to 13.2moz by 2026, averaging 3.1% annual growth and remaining the second largest global gold producer by a significant margin,” BMI states.

The firm sees modest production growth for Russia’s gold industry, while the U.S. gold sector will see steady production growth supported by rising prices and the fact that federal deregulation under the Trump administration will prompt project development and relax environmental requirements.