Ms Amgaabazar was presented to the PM. Jeenbekov has thanked the Jean-Michel Happi, who is completing his mission as the World Bank's Country Manager for the country, for contribution to strengthening cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and WB, and expressed hope for further fruitful cooperation with the new leadership of the office.

Bolormaa Amgaabazar, a Mongolian national, joined the World Bank in 2004 and has worked in the East Asia and Pacific and Africa regions. Amgaabazar was a task team member of the National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM) in Indonesia and was responsible for the implementation of the program in eastern parts of the country with a special focus on Papua and West Papua provinces. When working in the Jakarta office, she held a position of a Trust Fund Coordinator. In 2008 she relocated to Washington DC while continuing to work on Indonesia as the Country Officer. In 2011 she moved to the Africa Region, as Senior Operations Officer for Sudan and South Sudan, based in Nairobi.

In 2014, she was appointed Country Representative for Timor-Leste. As the Country Representative, Amgaabazar’s responsibilities include overseeing the Bank’s program in Timor Leste; managing and supporting the Country Office Staff; and leading the Bank’s dialogue with the Government of Timor-Leste towards the twin goals of reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity.

Amgaabazar holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands.

Leading huge ships with a total crew of over 20,000, Zheng's ships visited ports across the Indian Ocean, the Middle East and Africa, "not as conquerors with warships, guns or swords" but as "friendly emissaries" sailing treasure-loaded ships, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in the keynote speech of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing on May 14.

One theory has it that several parts of Zheng's fleet passed through the Arctic Ocean in their wooden vessels and discovered Greenland and Iceland -- see former British submarine commander Gavin Menzies' book, "1421: The Year China Discovered the World."

The authenticity of that theory aside, Xi's Belt and Road voyage seems to be taking a similarly ambitious turn north to those icy waters.

Chinese diplomacy with countries and regions bordering the Arctic has intensified greatly in the past two months. Xi visited Alaska and Finland, while a senior Communist Party delegation was just in Iceland and a Norwegian leader visited Beijing for the first time since relations soured in 2010 over the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

This choice of destinations is no coincidence. "Looking at the visit to Finland, Alaska and Iceland, you can see the connection with the Arctic Council's chairmanship calendar," said Damien Degeorges, a Reykjavik, Iceland-based consultant specializing in Arctic affairs.

The Arctic Council serves as the leading intergovernmental forum among countries in the region: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S. The council determines regulations on sustainable development and environmental protection.

"Earlier this month, Alaska hosted a ministerial meeting ending the U.S. chairmanship," Degeorges said. "Now Finland is holding the current chairmanship, and in two years it will be Iceland."

Xi visited Finland en route to his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in April. After meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, Xi said Beijing and Helsinki would "seize the opportunity of Finland's rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council to enhance cooperation in Arctic affairs."

Degeorges also sees the resumption of diplomacy with Norway in the same context. "It was essential for China to normalize relations with Norway, which is a major actor in the Arctic," he said.

According to PM J.Erdenebat, the economic growth has shown increases in the first quarter of 2017. The major products in the sector, namely cashmere, wool, leather, textiles, wood and carpentry products constitute 60 percent of the total output of the industry. As of 2016, around 2 thousand factories were operating in this field, providing workplace for 48.8 thousand people.

By an estimate, around 9.4 tons of cashmere, 29 thousand tons of wool and 14 million skins and hides are expected to be prepared in 2017. The main focus for the light industry is to process 30-60 percent of these materials into final products, increasing the production to MNT 4 trillion and total sales to MNT 3.5 trillion by the end of 2017.

As of today, a total of 34 factories is processing leather in Ulaanbaatar and around 200 SMEs are producing final products with hides and skins in rural areas, providing jobs for 5.6 thousand people. In 2015, the local tanneries have processed 2 million raw skins and hides and produced final products worth MNT 169.6 billion. And at the end of 2016, the total production of processed leather was at 1.6 million, while semi-processed leather production reached 4.3 million and the total sales increased by 12% to MNT 259.5 billion. Out of the latter number, MNT 182 billion is comprised of processed raw skins and hides, while the remaining MNT 77.7 billion is of final products.

Also, with an aim to support small and medium size enterprises in the non-mining sectors to strengthen their export capabilities and expand access to exports market, “Export Development Project” has started being implemented since March, 2017 with the cooperation of World Bank.

Mongolia imported MNT 204 billion worth of cosmetics and household chemical products in 2016, which is 90 percent of the total domestic consumption. Therefore, the Government is supporting SMEs by exempting them from customs and value added tax, providing equipment leasing opportunities through banks.

PM J.Erdenebat also mentioned to implement policies to further support SMEs and provide a favorable environment for investment. As stated on the Government’s Action Plan for 2016-2020, a hundred factories in the export-oriented sectors will be established in rural areas to substitute imports through “Industrialization 21:100” program. In consideration of the area’s resource output, human resource and development plan, these factories will improve living conditions in the areas through their profit.
B.Tugsbilig

The province will also stop the construction of more coal mines over the period to further reduce capacity, state-owned news agency Xinhua reported, quoting a recent coal industry development plan published by the local government.

Currently, Shanxi supplies coking coal to China's top steel mills and also exports to Japan and Korea.
Coal output at Shanxi, in the country's north, will be capped by 2020 at 1 billion tonnes and capacity at 1.2 billion tonnes annually by 2020.

Currently, the province supplies coking coal to China's top steel mills and also exports to Japan and Korea.

Earlier this month, provincial authorities announced they it will close 18 collieries and cut 17 million tonnes of coal capacity by the end of the year.

China, the world’s largest coal consumer and producer, is in the midst of an aggressive plan to reduce the share of coal in its overall energy mix and consequent smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of that strategy, Beijing announced in January its intention to shut down 800 million tonnes of outdated coal capacity by 2020.

The country has also made public recently its goal of modernizing its coal-fired power plants by 2020 in an effort to cut “polluting” emissions by 60%. The government also aims to add over 20 million kilowatts of installed wind power and more than 15 million kilowatts of installed photovoltaic power by the end of the decade.

The Northern China import price of 62% Fe content ore is down 15% for in May trading at $57.80 per dry metric tonne, the lowest since mid-October according to data supplied by The Steel Index.

“There may be a slowdown in demand from the housing sector but the infrastructure sector will still be sustained”
Benchmark prices are down a whopping 37% from their February highs when ore came to within shouting distance of triple digits.

Bloomberg quotes closely followed emerging markets investor Mark Mobius as saying volatile iron ore prices and the fundamentals of the industry have to be looked at separately.

Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said the while fundamentals have bee stable, the price is "subject to all kinds of external factors" including how traders are betting on the price going up or down:

“I don’t see a big, big decline in the demand for iron ore going forward, I think there’ll be continuing demand not only in China but other parts of the world,” said Mobius, who’s spent over 40 years tracking emerging markets. “If you look at Chinese imports of iron ore, it’s almost a straight line, continuing to go up,” adding that in contrast the price “is going all over the place.”

“There may be a slowdown in demand from the housing sector but the infrastructure sector will still be sustained,” Mobius said. “If the One Belt, One Road program proceeds, there’ll be continuing demand.”