Mongolia has marked the International Day of Forests under the theme of "Healthy Forests -- Healthy People" to enhance public awareness about the importance of forests and trees, the country's Ministry of Environment and Tourism said Tuesday.

Under the auspices of the country's President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, a national conference to discuss the pressing issues in the forestry sector was held here Monday on the occasion of the International Day of Forests, the ministry said in a statement.

"Environmental problems are all interconnected. If we lose trees, we will lose water, air, soil and even life," Minister of Environment and Tourism Bat-Ulzii Bat-Erdene said, urging the country's forestry authorities and citizens to contribute to planting more trees and protecting the environment.

Mongolia has a total land area of 1,564,116 square km, only around 8 percent of which is covered by forests.

About 77 percent of the country's total territory has been affected by desertification and land degradation, according to official data.

Therefore, the Asian country launched a nationwide tree-planting campaign "Billion Trees" initiated by the president in October 2021, which aims to plant at least a billion trees by 2030 to combat desertification.

The country has planted more than 10 million trees across the country since the launch of the tree-planting campaign, according to the ministry.

Mongolia has welcomed a total of 76,068 foreign tourists so far this year, with Russia, China and South Korea being the biggest sources of its tourist arrivals. Around 6,500 British nationals visit Mongolia annually.

The Mongolian government has been taking measures to revive the pandemic-hit tourism sector. Particularly, it has exempted citizens of 34 countries from visa requirements for up to 30 days until the end of 2025.

The country has also classified 2023, 2024 and 2025 as “Years to Visit Mongolia,” and is expected to organize more than 90 events in 2023 to promote tourism. Mongolia has set a goal of welcoming at least 1 million foreign tourists and earning USD 1 billion from tourism in the coming years.

The country received a total of 290,400 foreign tourists in 2022, earning 350 million dollars from the tourism sector.

Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Michele Sison will travel to Madagascar, South Africa, Mauritius, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, March 22-April 7, for meetings with counterparts and UN officials to reinforce U.S. commitment to collaborative multilateral engagement in addressing collective global challenges.

Assistant Secretary Sison will travel to Antananarivo, Madagascar, March 22 before traveling to Johannesburg, South Africa, March 24 and Port Louis, Mauritius, March 27. The Assistant Secretary will then travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, March 29, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, March 31, Hanoi, Vietnam, April 4, Bangkok, Thailand, April 5, and Vientiane, Laos, April 6-7.

While in Bangkok, the Assistant Secretary will meet with officials at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, which serves as the UN’s regional hub promoting regional cooperation and providing technical assistance and capacity-building services in support of national development objectives and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Throughout her travel, the Assistant Secretary will discuss areas of current and potential multilateral cooperation, including in the context of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and tackling transnational challenges, including climate change, food insecurity, and global health security. Assistant Secretary Sison will also advocate for the U.S. candidate for Director General of the International Organization for Migration, Amy Pope.

Partnering with ХасБанк (XacBank) and Тэнгэр Даатгал (Tenger Insurance),BASE is starting the implementation of the Energy Savings Insurance (ESI) in Mongolia. After an initial rollout of the model in Latin America in 2015, its success motivated an expanded rollout in different areas of the world such as Europe, North Africa, and is now arriving in Central Asia.

Mongolia has been experiencing extremely high levels of particulate matter in the air in recent years. From summer to winter, the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, faces from 6 to 14 times higher pollution than considered safe by the World Health Organisation (WHO), with severe health implications for residents, especially children and the elderly. Coal burning as a main source of energy generated by old and inefficient power plants located within the city but also from individual households is mainly responsible for this situation: More than half of Ulaanbaatar’s population lives in traditional dwellings (gers) districts surrounding the city centre, that uses coal-powered simple stoves for heating and cooking. In winter months, the extreme cold weather traps the particles at ground level due to the thermal inversion phenomenon.

Accelerating the deployment of cleaner energy technologies is vital for the region, for the sake of both the environment and public health, and different initiatives tried to create such momentum in this direction between 2010 and 2012. The Law on Air and the Law on Air Pollution Tax were enacted to respectively set emission limits, provide air quality monitoring and start charging fees to different categories of stakeholders for the air pollutants they emit. Building on that, in 2017, the National Program on Reduction of Air and Environment Pollution (NPRAEP) was adopted by the government of Mongolia in an effort to scale up efforts to improve air quality nationwide.

It provides revised and more ambitious targets, additional indicators, and aims to create a policy framework enabling more coordinated action in this sector. At the same time, several organisations partnered with the government with the aim to replace the coal-fired stoves with cleaner ones requiring less polluting fuels, or other technologies such as heat pumps in the case of a pre-feasibility study conducted by the Global Green Growth Institute. Despite these endeavours, Ulaanbaatar remains one of the most polluted capital cities of the world, regularly reaching dangerous levels of particles and topping rankings of worst air quality indexes.

Pollution smog stuck at low altitudes during winter months.

Mainstreaming the usage of energy-efficient appliances can drastically reduce emissions while being relatively low-cost compared to other solutions. Additionally, consuming less energy resources can alleviate the challenges posed by extremely cold weather conditions such as on warm or fresh air generation (e.g: conventional heat pumps greatly lose effectiveness in freezing climates) as well as on storage (e.g: batteries can see their performances and lifespan divided by two in temperatures twenty degrees celsius below zero, affecting the amortisation and profitability). However, energy efficiency faces its own barriers, such as the lack of trust in the actual energy savings more expensive efficient equipment can deliver.

The Energy Savings Insurance (ESI) has potential to overcome such barriers. ESI is an insurance-based model that incentivises micro, small and medium businesses (MSMEs) to choose energy-efficient solutions instead of cheaper, conventional appliances when installing or upgrading an equipment. The model guarantees the energy savings a high-performing system should deliver, reinforcing the trust in the long-term profitability of switching to energy-efficient appliances. XacBank enlisted the consulting services of BASE in November 2021 for a one-year program aimed at effectively implementing the ESI model, tested and proven successful in catalysing the adoption of energy-efficient technologies in other regions of the world, notably Latin America.

Partnering with sustainability leaders

Recognising the urgency to ramp up actions to promote energy efficiency, private sector actors also entered the arena over the past decade. Financial institutions such as ХасБанк (XacBank), started to establish several mechanisms to facilitate and accelerate the uptake of low-carbon technologies, such as loans with lower interest rates for equipment emitting less greenhouse gas (GHG) or hybrid and electric cars. In October 2016, XacBank became the first commercial bank and the first private entity from a developing nation to become an accredited entity by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In that context, it received funding to scale up its efforts to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency in the country. In 2021, XacBank partnered with BASE to identify business opportunities, and define a strategy that would incentivise small businesses to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The ESI model was seen as an option with great potential to achieve these goals.

Daniel Magallon, Managing Director of BASE, and Pablo Oses, Senior Business Developer, introducing the model at the workshop event organized by XacBank at the BlueSky Hotel&Tower. Ulaanbataar’s XacBank headquarters

In the framework of this project, the sustainability experts of URECA have been selected to conduct the technical validations of projects using the model. Originating from Mongolia and based in Singapore, URECA is a climate-tech startup specialising in developing state-of-the-art digital solutions to facilitate and democratise carbon offsetting. Leveraging the latest technologies such as blockchain and AI, the company helps households in unplanned ger districts as well as small businesses to shift to clean energies, improving their energy security and increasing their income by selling carbon credits gained by cutting their emissions. To ensure the transparency and benefits of those activities, URECA carries strict auditing activities and developed a user-friendly measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system tracking transactions and their impacts. As part of the ESI implementation project in Mongolia, the company will harness its expertise in conducting energy performance analysis to act as a third-party validator and certifier of the savings that technology vendors claim to deliver to customers through their more efficient appliances. With its strong skills in digital solutions, the company will also design the management information system that will facilitate interactions between ESI adopters and all stakeholders involved, and consolidate reliable and transparent MRV data.

Kickstarting the model

In February 2023, the BASE team joined partners from XacBank, Tenger Insurance and URECA to present the model to a variety of stakeholders, including clean energy systems providers and government agency representatives. This inauguration marks the end of a long preparation phase reflecting on how to adapt the model so it can overcome local barriers and address country-specific needs. The feasibility study highlighted the potential of this solution aimed at smaller organisations: 90 percent of Mongolia’s companies are MSMEs. The market assessment revealed almost 14,000 of them, 85 percent of which operate in carbon-intensive industries such as mining, manufacturing or textile.

After the introduction of the model, a second follow-up workshop was held which caught the attention of seven major companies belonging to various sectors, including photovoltaics, electric motors, and efficient houses, among others. Possible pilot projects are being discussed with the objective to find reputable technologists, and keen customers to partner with in order to ensure the quality of the project and good initial visibility.

BASE will be accompanying Xacbank and Tenger Insurance partners all along the initial phase of implementation, which seeks to build strong relationships with local providers for the model to prosper in the long run.

Because the public sector has a significant role to play in the energy transition, the team held meetings with key organisations, including UNEP and Energy Regulatory Commission of Mongolia (ERC) in an effort to include the ESI model within the requirements of the government’s public procurement procedures. This would enable the state of Mongolia to use a standard but adaptable solution to promote sustainability and energy efficiency in all public projects, creating a real win-win situation for everyone.

Mongolia has been identified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as one of the 29 developing countries that are rich in natural resources, and the exploration of coal and copper deposits is generating a significant amount of extra revenue. Mongolia primarily mines coal, copper, and gold. Despite experiencing a 4.4 percent decline in growth due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mongolia’s economy regained momentum in the following two years, reaching a 2.2 percent growth in 2022. Experts estimate the country will gain a 4.5 percent growth by the end of 2023.

According to data from the World Bank, the mining sector accounted for approximately 22 percent of Mongolia’s GDP in 2021, and over a staggering 80 percent of the country’s exports. However, this heavy reliance on the mining sector has also made the country vulnerable to fluctuations in global commodity prices, as seen during the recent downturn in the global mining industry itself. In response to this vulnerability, the Mongolian government has been working to diversify its economy and attract foreign investment in other sectors, including agriculture, tourism, and renewable energy.

In April 2022, the government launched its so-called Revival Strategy which includes furture plans (Vision 2050) focusing on a revamp of six areas that need “recovery”: port, energy, industrial, urban and rural, green growth, and State productivity. The country has a wealth of untapped natural resources and has established a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to manage growing revenues from mining exports. Mongolia plans to invest over USD 392 million into a Future Heritage Fund every year as part of its overall economic growth strategy.

To reduce the environmental impact of mining operations, Mongolian mining companies are increasingly considering green and digital solutions. This includes implementing measures to improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and adopt waste management solutions. The country’s largest mining project, Oyu Tolgoi, managed by Rio Tinto, has committed to decarbonizing its operations, which will require the adoption of green and digital solutions.

Mongolia has welcomed a total of 76,068 foreign tourists so far this year, with Russia, China and South Korea being the biggest sources of its tourist arrivals, the country's Ministry of Environment and Tourism said Monday.

The Mongolian government has been taking measures to revive the pandemic-hit tourism sector. Particularly, it has exempted citizens of 34 countries from visa requirements for up to 30 days until the end of 2025.

The country has also classified 2023, 2024 and 2025 as "Years to Visit Mongolia," and is expected to organize more than 90 events in 2023 to promote tourism.

Mongolia has set a goal of welcoming at least 1 million foreign tourists and earning 1 billion U.S. dollars from tourism in the coming years.

The country received a total of 290,400 foreign tourists in 2022, earning 350 million dollars from the tourism sector.

Funding for the construction of two additional lanes of the Ulaanbaatar-Darkhan road has been resolved.

On March 16, a grant agreement with a total amount of EUR 22.5 million was signed with Suzanne Hargis, Director of the Central Asia region of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

In this framework, the funding necessary for the construction of the 204 km Ulaanbaatar-Darkhan road will be fully resolved. Therefore, the road will be thickened and put into use as a high-quality road.

According to the Ministry of Road and Transportation, the performance of two lane construction work is 60% as of today. Road construction preparations began on February 10, and the road construction work will start from March 25.

The Ministry of Finance informed that they are working to hand over two additional lanes of road work within 2023 according to the execution plan.

The rapid development of technology has pushed the global financial system to evolve at a faster rate than ever seen before. Even traditional financial institutions have undergone functional changes over the past few years.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the digital transformation of the financial industry. However, in Mongolia, the FinTech industry is in the early stages of development. The presence of a network association of FinTech investors, tech players, and industry participants are particularly important as they can represent industry interests, act as self-regulatory organizations, focus on the development of the sector and manage customer needs.

Here are 3 FinTech companies paving the way for a digital future:

GrapeCity Mongolia

GrapeCity Mongol LLC was established in 2000 and has been specializing in the development of banking and payment solution software and is a market leader in this sector. Of the 12 commercial banks in Mongolia, 11 use its software products, and 9 are operating on its Core Banking system.

Based on its unique market positioning in the banking sector, GrapeCity established the first-ever country-wide, inter-institutional MOST payment platform.

ORDA Wealth Tech

ORDA is an investment platform bridging emerging and developed markets. It allows retail investors to invest like the top 1% in real estate, luxury, artwork and more by fractionalizing assets into accessible shares.

ORDA allows users to invest in fractional shares of alternative assets using a mobile app. It offers various asset classes such as real estate, collectibles, art, commodities and private equity. It integrates a behavioural finance-based recommendation algorithm that uses machine learning and data science to recommend precise and personalized assets that are tailored to each user’s risk, goal and investment style.

Steppe Group

Steppe is a group of Mongolian companies driven to evolve finance and technology to reduce inefficiency in capital markets and bring greater opportunity and returns to investors, while finding ways to share the wealth with the community and to help develop sustainable, healthy economies in emerging regions.