China to connect regions with 400kph bullet trains by 2020 www.rt.com

Beijing is developing a new generation of trains capable of reaching 400 kilometers per hour, China Daily reported. The high-speed trains will be part of the so-called Belt and Road Initiative to boost economic ties with other countries.
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A China Railway High-speed bullet train runs towards Beijing South Railway Station © Jason LeeBeijing targets economic growth with $500bn rail expansion
"We will apply new materials in the research and production of the future high-speed trains, such as carbon fiber and aluminum alloy, which will help to reduce weight and enhance energy efficiency,” said Qiao Feng, a senior engineer at the CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles, a subsidiary of China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation.

Japan, China, South Korea pledge to resist protectionism www.reuters.com

Finance leaders of Japan, China and South Korea agreed to resist all forms of protectionism in a trilateral meeting on Friday, taking a stronger stand than G20 major economies against the protectionist policies advocated by U.S. President Donald Trump.

KPMG's audits of Rolls-Royce accounts probed by regulator www.bbc.com

Britain's accountancy watchdog has opened an investigation into KPMG's audit of the accounts of aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) will probe the accountancy giant's oversight of Rolls-Royce's financial statements covering four years.
It follows Rolls-Royce's settlement of £671m with the Serious Fraud Office in January over corruption allegations.
KPMG said it was co-operating and was "confident in the quality" of its work.
The FRC said in a statement: "The FRC has commenced an investigation under the Audit Enforcement Procedure into the conduct of KPMG Audit Plc, in relation to the audit of the financial statements of Rolls-Royce Group plc for the year ended 31 December 2010 and of Rolls-Royce Holdings plc for the years ended 31 December 2011 to 31 December 2013.
"The decision to investigate follows the SFO announcement on 17 January 2017 of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement between the SFO and Rolls-Royce which relates to offences including conspiracy to corrupt and a failure to prevent bribery."
The agreements relate to bribery and corruption scandals involving intermediaries in overseas markets such as Indonesia and China.
Rolls-Royce first passed information to the SFO in 2012 after facing "allegations of malpractice" in the two countries, after which the fraud squad launched a formal investigation.
'Full cooperation'
The company said at the time that its own investigations had found "matters of concern" in additional overseas markets.
KPMG, one of the world's largest accountancy firms, said: "It is important that regulators acting in the public interest should review high profile issues. We will co-operate fully with the FRC's investigation, which follows the SFO's investigations into Rolls-Royce.
"We are confident in the quality of all the audit work we have completed for Rolls-Royce, including the 2010-2013 period the FRC is considering."
The firm has audited Rolls-Royce for 26 years, but is due to replaced next year by PwC.
Rolls-Royce apologised "unreservedly" after the SFO settlement.
The SFO revealed 12 counts of conspiracy to corrupt or failure to prevent bribery in seven countries - Indonesia, Thailand, India, Russia, Nigeria, China and Malaysia.
Often described as "a jewel in the UK's industrial crown", Rolls-Royce makes engines for military and civil planes, as well as for trains, ships, nuclear submarines and power stations.
But in addition to the corruption claims, the company has been hit by a string of profit warnings that sparked a tumble in the share price in the past couple of years. In February, the company reported a record loss of £4.6bn.
Rolls-Royce is holding its annual meeting in Derby, home to its main factory and where it employs 14,000 people.
In a statement ahead of the meeting, chief executive Warren East said estimates for profits and cash flow this year were unchanged, news that will be welcomed by long-suffering shareholders.
"We have some important transformation initiatives under way and, while we have made good progress in our cost-cutting and efficiency programmes, more needs to be done to ensure we drive sustainable margin improvements within the business," Mr East said.
The statement made no reference to the KPMG investigation.

Deliberative Polling and the Future of Mongolia’s Constitution www.asiafoundation.org

By Amarzaya Naran, Mark Koenig

Bringing together a representative sample of an entire country in one room is not a simple task, especially in a place like Mongolia, where much of the population lives in small, often isolated communities, spread out over a vast terrain. For many citizens, a trip to the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, means a full day on a bus, often on unpaved and poorly maintained roads. But once the complicated logistics are figured out, the possibilities for dialogue and discussion that such diversity brings to one room is immense.
Deliberative Polling session in Mongolia 
Plenary sessions provided an opportunity for citizens to hear the arguments in support of and opposed on each issue from independent experts.
On April 29-30, the Mongolian parliament did just that when it brought together 669 randomly selected citizens from across the country to Ulaanbaatar for the first-ever national deliberative poll on the future of the Mongolian constitution. Deliberative polling is an intensive research method that gathers a randomly selected and representative sample, rather than self-selected participants, and provides citizens with information in writing to ensure it is gathering informed opinions. The deliberative poll finishes with each participant taking an opinion survey to determine their views on the topics discussed. These opinions are then collected and help shape the process of constitutional amendment the government will undertake in the coming months.
The two-day event stimulated discussion and gathered citizen input on critical issues ranging from the powers of the president and ensuring the independence of the civil society, to the pressures of urbanization and the frequency of elections.

Citizens in the deliberative poll were organized into 49 small groups of (15 people each) to deliberate on each issue.
Mongolia’s constitution dates to 1992 when the country was just beginning its transition to democracy and a fully market-based economy. While the constitution has provided the foundation for Mongolia to become one of the region’s most robust democracies, in recent years politicization has crept into all levels of government, the independence of the courts and other independent institutions have been called into question, and successive governments have struggled to identify and implement key policies to continue Mongolia’s resource-based growth.
While a long list of such constraints has been raised, consensus on such complicated and contentious issues is extremely difficult to reach, and experts differ widely on which amendments to prioritize and how they should be combined.
The poll comes two months after Mongolia’s government passed a law requiring that the deliberative polling method be conducted before amendments to the constitution could be made. Deliberative polling, pioneered over 30 years ago by the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, was first conducted at the Ulaanbaatar city level in 2015 with support from The Asia Foundation and Stanford University. Both Stanford and the Foundation provided capacity building and advisory support for this first national event.
Last weekend’s discourse clearly shows that the government has learned some lessons from the last round of constitutional amendment efforts in 2000, which were viewed negatively throughout the country, in part because they were made quickly and with minimal discussion and debate. In contrast, this event was highly publicized in advance, and the deliberative polling methodology brought clear advantages over other traditional consultation techniques.

Citizens from all walks of like and from every part of Mongolia gathered to participate in this first nation-wide deliberation on constitutional amendments.
Participants from across the country expressed excitement at the prospect of their voices being heard in this amendment process, as well as strong opinions about the wide range of issues being considered. For example, one participant who had journeyed from remote Huvsgal aimag (province) indicated that after the event she had a strong preference to have the power to elect her own local governor, rather than have the governor appointed by the aimag. She believed an elected governor would better understand local issues and concerns.
While the results of the dialogue are still being compiled, and exactly what amendments might result from this process will not be seen for some months, the event clearly shows the intention of the government to invest in citizen participation in the future of the constitution.
To politicians, observers, citizens, and others watching this deliberative event it became apparent that if people think their voice matters in a forum such as this, they will fully engage in fruitful discussion among themselves, ask the experts informed questions, and then make tough decisions on what is best for their communities. While many discussions included surprise and honor at being invited to the deliberation and visiting the Government House, and excitement at meeting people from different provinces, most would quickly, however, shift back to the constitution and how it can support their hopes for the country’s development.
Amarzaya Naran is deputy manager of The Asia Foundation’s Governance Program in Mongolia. Mark Koenig is the Foundation’s deputy director and urban governance specialist based in the Bangkok office. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation or its funders.

Chinese firm becomes Deutsche Bank's biggest shareholder www.cnn.com

China Inc. has just become the largest investor in Germany's biggest bank.
HNA Group, a deal-hungry Chinese conglomerate, now owns almost 10% of Deutsche Bank (DB), according to a filing Tuesday. That means it has overtaken the Qatari royal family to become the German lender's top shareholder, according to the latest disclosures.
The acquisition of a significant stake in a pillar of European finance is another example of China's growing global influence. Last year, Chinese firms announced around $220 billion worth of deals for foreign companies, far more than any previous year.

Jason Allford: IMF and WB are ready if Parliament makes its decision certain www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Today, May 04,Head of Cabinet Secretariat, Minister J.Munkhbat met with the World Bank representatives, headed by Jason Allford, the Executive Director of the World Bank Group representing Mongolia and some other countries. Minister J.Munkhbat noted that protecting investors’ rights in legal frame is one of the priorities of the Government and a council in charge of protecting investors’ rights was established by an order of Prime Minister. He expressed his thanks to the World Bank for granting financial support within the IMF program to Mongolia.

Forest fire in Inner Mongolia spreads to 10,000 hectares www.xinhuanet.ccom

HOHHOT, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 5,000 firefighters are battling a fire in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The fire has spread to 10,000 hectares, said Shen Dongsheng, an officer with the forest detachment at the Greater Hinggan Mountains.
Four temporary helicopter landing spots have been set up for artificial precipitation, and armored vehicles are also mobilized.
The fire broke out at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday in the Bilahe Beidahe forest in Inner Mongolia.
Initial investigations found the fire was caused by illegal dumping of burning residue by a local furnace worker, who has been detained for further investigation.

Doing the same thing and expecting different results: Mongolia plans to curb air pollution with more coal www.bankwatch.org

A new law on air pollution recently adopted by the Mongolian government is in part the result of massive demonstrations that swept the streets of Ulaanbaatar during the winter months, when pollution in the capital is at its worst. Mobilised under the umbrella movement ‘Moms and dads against smog’, the protestors signed petitions calling on the government to come with an urgent plan for tacking the overwhelming situation in the city, where emissions from the coal burned in the surrounding ger districts and three combined heat and power plants reached some of the highest levels in the world this past winter.

The new policy will soon be followed by a yearly action plan for reducing emissions, but the protestors and civil society groups working for cleaner air in the country should remain cautious. That’s because the government’s plan involves even more reliance on coal – hauled in from the massive Tavan Tolgoi mine in the south and then cleaned in as yet constructed processing plants before being burned in the ger districts that are now responsible for 60 per cent of total emissions in the capital. So the plan does not appear to tackle the underlining problem in Mongolia, which is its dependency on coal.

A new Bankwatch report presented this week in Ulaanbaatar argues that the energy plans of the Mongolian government – which have the backing of international financial institutions – are disconnected from the urgent need to improve the efficiency of an ageing energy system and at the same time address the massive potential of solar and wind energy in the country. The report also shows how the 12 gigawatts of electricity that would be produced by the power plants planned by the government by the year 2030 exceed even its own projections for electricity demand in the country.

The report surveys a number of Mongolia’s coal power projects in the pipeline, including the 600 MW Tavan Tolgoi power plant in the South Gobi region, which would benefit mostly just three mines close to the Tavan Tolgoi deposit, including the EBRD and IFC-financed Oyu Tolgoi mine. In the capital, plans for a new combined heat and power plant supported by the Asian Development Bank and with potential involvement by the EBRD, would only add to emissions while not tackling the problem of burning coal in the ger districts, as these are not connected to the public utilities.

To better understand what is at stake with the governments’ plans for the continued use of coal, more than 40 members of civil society groups from the country gathered on 1 May at the Water Conservation Centre in Ulaanbaatar to discuss the risks of coal-based energy and the involvement of financial institutions in pushing for coal-based energy projects in the country.

Mongolia is at a crossroad, and the movement started by civil society this past winter is a sign for international financiers like the EBRD and the ADB to rethink their energy strategies for Mongolia and prioritise energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions for the the ger districts, rural areas and the people of Mongolia.

AIIB hopes to win international credit rating by end of third quarter www.asia.nikkei.com

YOKOHAMA -- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank hopes to obtain an international credit rating by the end of the third quarter of this year, a move which will take it a step closer to being able to issue bonds.

"We recently finished talking to the international credit rating agencies," Soren Elbech, the director general and treasurer of AIIB, who joined the bank in December last year, told Nikkei Asian Review on Wednesday. "We have a clear expectation to be rated before the end of the third quarter this year." He added that the bank expects to obtain "the highest rating that we can achieve," given its financial and business profile.

The AIIB, a Chinese-led initiative, has so far approved approximately $2.5 billion in loans, funding the disbursements with the paid-in capital from the member countries. Elbech said that the AIIB was in no rush to issue bonds to finance the loans, as it had received around $9 billion in paid-in capital up to now, which gives the bank "more than enough and ample capital" to service the loans for the next four to five years.

But Elbech, former treasurer of the Inter-American Development Bank, said the AIIB would look to issue bonds to "build up the bank's credibility in the market, pricing, [and] awareness with the investors." The Dane did not give a specific schedule on issuing the bonds, saying it depended on market conditions, but the size of the issue will be "a minimum of a billion [U.S. dollars]".

Issue 'has to be credible'

"My experience tells me that [for] a name like ours, the newest multilateral financial institution, to be positioned within its peer group, the size of the issue has to be credible. We want to firmly establish the bank's name," he said. "ADB just did a $4 billion three-year deal -- its largest ever. In order to be recognized within our peer group, we don't need to do these kinds of sizes, not yet at least."

Despite China's heavy involvement, Elbech said he expected the bank to issue its initial bonds in dollars, not renminbi. "U.S. dollar is our functional currency so that points to the initial issue to be in dollars," he said. "However, I'm sure we are going to be issuing in renminbi also at some stage and when it makes sense for the bank." He believed AIIB bonds would be attractive for international investors as they offered an opportunity to invest in a multilateral development bank other than the likes of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

AIIB added 13 new member countries in March, expanding its roster to 70 nations. However, the U.S. and Japan have thus far not applied for membership, out of concern that the international lender will be a tool to fund Chinese ambitions. China has contributed about 30% of the AIIB's $100 billion in capital and has around 25% of the voting rights, holding effective veto power over key projects.

Elbech dismissed these claims. The AIIB "is there to finance projects in all our member countries -- as long as it benefits Asia." He said he expected that lending to projects in China would be modest and, predominantly, to non-sovereign borrowers.

Japan promotes bullet train system in Malaysia www.nhk.or.jp

Japanese government officials have pitched the positive economic effects of adopting the country's Shinkansen high-speed train system at a briefing session in the Malaysian capital.