The ministry says Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Deputy Director-General Fumio Shimizu conversed with the chief of the North's Disarmament and Peace Institute. They met on the sidelines of an international conference on security issues in Northeast Asia.

The ministry says Shimizu conveyed to the North Korean side Japan's basic stance that Pyongyang must return all Japanese nationals abducted by its agents.

Shimizu is also believed to have told the North Korean side that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is willing to resolve the abduction issue through direct talks with North Korea.

A similar brief conversation between officials of the 2 countries took place at last year's session of the security conference. At that time, the Japanese side demanded that the North abandon its nuclear and missile programs and allow the abductees to return home.

But climate change, urban migration and barriers to export have created new challenges. Mongolia needs a long-term strategy to properly capitalise on opportunities for growth.

Hosting this year’s meeting of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL), in Ulaanbaatar from 11-15June, is an important moment for Mongolia and its move towards sustainable herding.

Livestock numbers have surpassed 65 million but pasture quality – and productivity – has suffered. To rejuvenate animal farming for the millions of nomadic families trying to uphold their way of life requires commitment to greater sustainability.

To ensure continued prosperity and growth, the Mongolian Agenda for Sustainable Livestock, supported by the GASL, has been established. This has the aim of introducing sustainable development principles for livestock and herders.

Meanwhile, the Mongolian Livestock programme sets out specific environmental standards widely accepted by scientists. This includes laws to protect our rangelands as well as biodiversity, wildlife and landscape features. A healthy environment means healthy animals and healthy incomes. The initiative is also working to improve access to markets, both domestic and international.

Under the “Industrialisation 21:100” programme to establish 100 processing plants in 21 provinces for products including meat, milk and cashmere, herders will be able to better access markets. Finally, competing on an international level also means meeting international standards, and this means ensuring the safety of the produce.

Mongolia plans to set up a general veterinary authority and produce livestock vaccines to help improve health and safety in the livestock and livestock products sector.

Meanwhile, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation is helping to establish disease-free zones for beef and lamb. A government delegation has visited Botswana and Namibia to learn from their experiences of opening up meat exports to the European Union.

The event was organized for the first time under the EU Trade Related Assistance to Mongolia (TRAM) project with the support of EU. Over 200 representatives of public and private sector, universities and institutes attended the event. Moreover, domestic producers have displayed their products to the EU countries during the event.

President of the MNCCI M.Oyunchimeg and Ambassador of the European Union to Mongolia Traian Hristea delivered opening speeches. Director of the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs V.Enkhbold and EU TRAM project leader Ms. Carmen Fratita also attended the event.
In 2017, Mongolia exported products to 19 out of 28 EU countries using General Scheme of Preferences (GSP) trade discount system with USD 687 thousand tax credit. Director of the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs V.Enkhbold emphasized the potential for further export increase.

The EU TRAM project being implemented between 2017 and 2021 with funding of EUR 5 million is aimed at promoting economic growth and reducing poverty by increasing foreign trade and product types.

Ambassador of the European Union to Mongolia Traian Hristea said that the TRAM project will focus on promotion of exports of Mongolia and usage of the GSP system. He also said “In addition to increasing the export of non-mining products,we’ll focus on the participation of employed women and creation of new jobs. This project is beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses, especially those producing value-added products. In this way, we hope that the quality and quantity of export products will increase.”

"We have to increase the number of tourists by 30 percent per year in the coming years to reach this goal," Namsrai Tserenbat said, Xinhua reported.

"We are working to develop tourism products, better services and tourism safety plans," the minister said.

Mongolia received over 470,000 overseas tourists in 2017, up from 16 percent year on year, and earned over 400 million dollars, up 20 percent from the previous year.

The landlocked Asian country has been making more efforts to develop the tourism sector in a bid to diversify its mining-dependent economy.

The country has declared 2018 as a tourism year.

Recently, Mongolia launched a hotline service for foreign visitors, providing information on popular destinations, ongoing events across the country and emergency help.

The new shares represent 26.05% of the company’s existing capital.

Mike Buck, chief executive of London-listed Petro Matad, said: “We are now well capitalised to execute a six well exploration drilling programme during an active and exciting 12 month period.

“This is the most significant exploration campaign in Mongolia for a number of years and I look forward to reporting on its progress once it kicks off in July 2018 with the spudding of the Snow Leopard-1 well.”

The update sent Petro Matad’s shares down 13.62% in early trading.

It is also the latest collaboration between a global vehicle maker and a technology firm as ride-hailing companies dominate the fast-growing field of mobility services, raising the risk of a future where car ownership declines in favor of such services.

Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) last month announced it would invest $2.25 billion in the Cruise autonomous vehicle unit of General Motors Co (GM.N), while Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) and Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC [TAMOJL.UL] have agreed to supply vehicles for Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) self-driving car subsidiary Waymo.

More than 30 delegates from 13 countries, including Japan, the People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, Thailand, and India, will be participating in the conference.

In detail, Mongolia’s export reached USD 2.9 billion and imports USD 2.2 billion. Exports of mineral products, textiles, precious and semi-precious gemstones and metal ornaments made up 94.7 percent of total exports.

Regarding imports: minerals products, machinery, equipment, electrical appliances, vehicles and their components as well as food products accounted for 68.5 percent.

The seasonally adjusted industrial production index in May 2018 was 170.6 (2010=100), increased by 4.1% from the same period of the previous year, by 11.5% from the end of the previous year and by 3.9% from the previous month.

Compared to the same period of last year, the most increase in the main production of the mining and quarrying sector in the first 5 months of 2018 goes to gold, copper concentrate, zincum concentrate, iron ore and crushed stone by 2.5% to 39.0%. In the manufacturing sector, major growth was observed in beer, fodder, combed down, vacuum windows and doors, sawn wood, alcoholic beverage, knitted goods, sausage products, buuz and dumpling by 6.5-27.8%, respectively.

The most decrease of production in the mining and quarrying sector observed for fluor spar, coal, crude oil and molybdenum concentrate by 1.8-9.4% and copper, horse meat production and wooden building door and windows of the manufacturing sector by 3.4-95.5%, respectively. In the first 5 months of 2018, the sold production of industry reached MNT 6.9 trillion and MNT 4.9 trillion (72.0%) of sold production that were exported.