Mongolia opposition taps former judo star as presidential candidate www.reuters.com

Mongolia's opposition Democratic Party on Thursday tapped former judo star and self-made millionaire Khaltmaa Battulga as its candidate in next month's presidential election in the landlocked country which is facing economic crisis.

Russia to resume wheat exports to Turkey, Ankara told to keep tomatoes www.rt.com

Ankara has withdrawn a 130 percent tariff on Russian grain following the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi.

China-made C919 no challenge to Boeing, Airbus dominance www.chinadaily.com

BEIJING - While the much-awaited first Chinese-built passenger jet C919 is ready to make its maiden flight Friday, it may take much longer for the newcomer to take off in the aviation market.

Shaking the dominance of aviation giants Boeing and Airbus in the near future is unrealistic, observers say, but the Chinese jetliner could be a strong option for global carriers in decades to come.

Scheduled to depart from Shanghai Pudong International Airport on May 5, the C919, with 158 seats and a standard range of 4,075 kilometers, is expected to compete with the updated Airbus 320 and Boeing's new generation 737.

A total of 23 foreign and domestic customers, including China's national carrier Air China and leasing company GE Capital Aviation Service, have placed orders for 570 aircraft, according to the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC).

But this is only the very first step. Even in China's domestic market, COMAC has a long way to go to turn technical success into business success.

Currently, Chinese airlines seem to be more keen to spend money on wide-body aircraft to enhance their global routes with rising enthusiasm for overseas travel. Those jets are still the exclusive province of Boeing and Airbus.

China Eastern Airlines signed contracts in 2016 to buy 20 A350-900 aircraft from Airbus and 15 B787-9 aircraft from Boeing to be delivered between 2018 and 2022.

China Southern Airlines announced in April that it will buy 20 A350-900 with a total catalog price of nearly $6 billion.

Boeing and Airbus are very mature aircraft manufacturers, and COMAC should seek further cooperation with them to learn from their experiences, according to aviation analysts.

But looking ahead, single-aisle planes like C919 will be the market mainstream and COMAC should do well in the Chinese market, one of the most competitive.

Boeing predicted last year that China will become the world's top aviation market within 20 years, projecting a demand for 6,810 new aircraft in the next two decades with a total value of $1 trillion.

China will need 5,110 new single-aisle airplanes through 2035, accounting for 75 percent of the total new deliveries, according to Boeing.

The C919 will be a strong competitor in this field being economical and comfortable, according to a research note from Guosen Securities.

If the maiden flight is successful, COMAC will seek airworthiness certificates from the Civil Aviation Administration of China and foreign aviation safety regulators before making its first deliveries.

Also, to pave way for C919 to enter foreign markets, the airworthiness certification of the jet will be a part of bilateral air safety agreement talks between China and the EU.

China has invested heavily in commercial passenger jet manufacturing. In 2007, plans to develop a domestic large passenger jet were approved by the State Council. In November 2015, the first C919 jet rolled off the assembly line.

The ARJ21, the country's first regional aircraft also produced by COMAC, began commercial operations in June 2016 following its maiden flight in 2008.

Parliament cancelled its decision to pass big projects sales income through Mongolian banks www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The second clause of Parliamentary resolution number 29, which indicated to raise state currency reserve by passing sales income of big projects with foreign investment through accounts of Mongolian banks, was cancelled during yesterday’s (May 4) plenary session of the Parliament. 65.5 per cent or 36 MPs out of the attended 55 backed to cancel the clause.

76.8 percent of Mongolian land suffers from desertification www.gogo.mn

According to the Report on Environmental State For 2015-2016, 76.8 percent of the Mongolian territory has been struck by desertification as a consequence of fast-spreading dryness in the recent years. The report was presented by Minister of Environment and Tourism, Ms D.Oyunkhorol at a cabinet meeting.

Orix buying into US geothermal company www.asia.nikkei.com

TOKYO -- Japanese leasing company Orix decided Thursday to invest about $627 million in an American geothermal technology company, aiming to bring the technology to Asia to tap what it expects to be a growing market.

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.