Mongolia has the world's highest rate of cancer mortality per 100,000, the country's National Cancer Center said Saturday.

In 2022, 4,548 people died of cancer in Mongolia with a population of 3.4 million, while at least 6,885 people were diagnosed with the disease in the country, the center said in a statement on the occasion of the World Cancer Day that falls on Feb. 4 each year.

More than 70 percent of new cancer cases have been diagnosed too late, and 87 percent of cancer patients are those aged 45 years or older, it said, adding that liver, gastric, esophageal and cervical cancers accounted for the majority of all registered cases.

Mongolia launched nationwide health checkups from last May to detect serious diseases early so as to promote a healthy lifestyle and narrow the life expectancy gap between men and women.

Late diagnosis makes treatment less likely to succeed and reduces survival chances, the country's Ministry of Health said in a statement, urging the public to actively participate in the checkups free of charge.

Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya will travel to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Tokyo, Japan February 5-10, 2023.

In Mongolia February 5-8, Under Secretary Zeya will meet with a range of government, civil society, and religious leaders to deepen robust U.S.-Mongolia partnership on democracy, human rights, law enforcement, and rule of law-related issues. She will also launch a child-friendly space supporting victims of child trafficking during investigations through the U.S.-Mongolia $5.5 million Child Protection Compact Partnership, ensuring trauma-informed and victim-centered practices. The Under Secretary will underscore the U.S. commitment to Mongolia’s role as a democratic partner in the region and globally.

In Tokyo February 8-10, Under Secretary Zeya will lead a U.S. delegation launching the inaugural U.S.-Japan Strategic Dialogue on Democratic Resilience with the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Highlighting the strength of the U.S.-Japan relationship and our shared democratic values, the Dialogue will identify opportunities for further collaboration on strengthening democracy, human rights, and gender equality, including the human rights of marginalized persons, throughout the Indo-Pacific during Japan’s G7 presidency year. The delegation will also include Special Envoy for the Advancement of the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons Jessica Stern and representatives from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Under Secretary Zeya will also meet with Government of Japan and civil society partners to discuss deepening collaboration and developing shared solutions to a range of human rights, humanitarian, and democracy-related challenges.

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Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs

In January 2023, the Bank of Mongolia (BoM) purchased 519.8 kg of precious metals.

BoM branches in Darkhan-Uul and Bayankhongor aimags bought 44.2 kg and 28.9 kg of precious metals, respectively in January.

The Bank of Mongolia sets the purchase price of precious metals based on the global market price. As of January, the highest purchase price of BoM was MNT 216,205 per 1 gram of gold, and the average purchase price was MNT 210,307.

Zagreb Open Ranking Series will take place in the capital city of Croatia until February 5. United World Wrestling is planning to hold a four-ranking series this year. The champions of the contest will be awarded CHF 1500, the following silver medalist CHF 750, and the bronze medalist CHF 500.

On the first day of the Zagreb Open, men’s 57, 61, 65, 70, 74, and 86 kg categories’ wrestles were run, and representing Mongolia, three wrestlers took part in men’s 61, 65, and 70 kg categories.

Specifically, in the men’s 65 kg category, Bronze Medalist of World Championships Tumur-Ochir Tulga continued to impress in the finals with his 4-1 win over Joseph Christopher MC KENNA (USA), proving T. Tulga will be a valiant world wrestler for Mongolia.

As expected, Bronze Medalist of the Under-23 and Adult World Championships Narmandakh Narankhuu (at 61 kg) impressively reached the finals and faced off against Reza Ahmadali ATRINAGHARCHI (IRI). Unfortunately, he lost his chance to bag the gold medal with a 3-11 loss over ATRINAGHARCHI and brought the silver medal to the Mongolian team.

International Master of Sport Enkhtuya Temuulen in the men’s 70 kg category contended against Georgy Elbakidze (Georgia) for the bronze medal but finished his wrestling path in this tournament with an 8-12 loss over Elbakidze.

On the second day of the Zagreb Open, Bronze Medalist of World Championships and International Master of Sports Ganbaatar Gankhuyag defeated Pruthviraj Babasaheb PATIL (IND) with his stunning 9-1 win in the men’s 92 kg.

The silver medalist of the World Championships, State Honored Athlete of Mongolia D. Otgonjargal dropped against the Mariya STADNIK (AZE) with a 2-6 loss. She is a four-time Olympic medalist and a European ten-time champion.

Mongolia fell six places in the corruption index where the country of 3.4 million placed in the 116th out of 180 countries, according to the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International. The least corrupt countries in the region include New Zealand and Singapore.

In 2020, the organization aimed to show the transparency of political financing and the aggressive entry of private interests into politics with the Corruption Perceptions Index. In 2021, when there was a pandemic, the level of corruption and how to fight it was emphasized. For the 2022 corruption index, more armed conflict and peace and security are emphasized.

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks of countries around the world, based on how corrupt their public sectors are perceived to be. The results are given on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mongolia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Deputy Prime Minister S. Amarsaikhan, who is paying a working visit to the United Kingdom (UK), met with Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Justice of the United Kingdom Dominic Raab and discussed bilateral relations and cooperation on January 26.

During the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister S. Amarsaikhan said that Mongolia attaches great importance to relations and cooperation with the United Kingdom as part of its Third Neighbor Policy and expressed readiness to support any initiative of the UK to intensify trade and economic relations. In addition, he expressed gratitude for the UK government’s decision to launch a new Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) and include Mongolia in its Extended Program.

Deputy Prime Minister requested to cooperate in implementing the long-term social and economic development policy of Mongolia, especially the “New Recovery Policy” approved by the government, and to receive funding from the UK for the implementation of the “Smart City” project in this context. He mentioned that the government of Mongolia pays special attention to developing tourism and made a decision on exempting the citizens of 34 countries, including the UK, from visa requirements. With regard to this, a request was put forth to ease the visa requirements for Mongolian citizens with diplomatic passports to travel to the UK.

In the meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab noted that the government of the UK focuses on the development of relations and cooperation with Asian countries as part of its Indo-Pacific Tilt policy and considered the relation being developed with Mongolia as a good example. Therefore the UK is paying attention to relations with Mongolia and supporting and cooperating with establishing a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, Memorandum on export financing, and the renewal of the Air Transport Agreement. He expressed his readiness to cooperate to increase the interest of British entrepreneurs in entering the Mongolian market, attract investment and strengthen Mongolia's capacity based on the UK’s experience.

In addition, the “Smart City” project introduced by Deputy Minister S. Amarsaikhan can be a standard project that will give specific results, similar to the Oyu Tolgoi project. He stated that he would discuss the possibility with other related organizations. He expressed his interest in visiting Mongolia if there is any opportunity.

D. Amartuya

Mongolia’s domestic party politics, international relations and economy all faced challenges in 2022. The Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) wrestled with how to govern despite having a supermajority in Mongolia’s parliament, the State Great Khural, and how to position itself vis-a-vis Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The government staked its fiscal fortunes on reviving coal exports to China but faced protests on corruption allegations linked to a state-owned coal mining company.

The difficulties of governing with a supermajority in Mongolia appear to be an open question. The electoral triumph of the MPP in Mongolia’s parliamentary and presidential elections in 2020 and 2021 respectively, raised concerns about the potential for democratic backsliding.

There were questions about whether the MPP would revert to its former single-party ruling status and threaten Mongolia’s democracy. Yet developments in 2022 suggest that the party is unexpectedly struggling with how to make a supermajority work.

The party discipline that once made the MPP a powerful force seems to have dissipated, with MPs largely reverting to ad hoc alliances to get pet projects passed in parliament.

Mongolia’s Prime Minister, Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, grappled with a constitutional amendment introduced in 2019 that restricted the number of members of parliament that could serve in the cabinet.

While the amendment was intended to strengthen parliamentary oversight and subject matter expertise in cabinet appointments, it seems to have led to perceptions of weak ministers.

Mongolia’s constitutional court threw out the amendment in August 2022, leading to a cabinet reshuffle. This brought more politicians into the cabinet in the hopes of shoring up Oyun-Erdene’s power. Another reshuffle in January 2023 further increased the number of politicians in the cabinet.

There were also questions around whether Mongolian foreign policy could adapt to the shifting geopolitical landscape in 2022. In response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Mongolian society has been divided between largely older Russophiles and younger internationalists who express their solidarity with Ukraine.

Mongolia’s government remained silent on the war for much of the northern-hemisphere spring, abstaining from votes censuring Russia at the UN General Assembly.

There was a perception that Moscow’s cozying up to Beijing would further reduce the degrees of foreign policy-making freedom available to Mongolia, as well as a realization that a resurgently imperialist Russia — on whom Mongolia is entirely dependent for fuels and for electricity in its western regions — was waging an energy war on Europe.

Plans for a trans-Mongolian gas pipeline from Siberia to China and proposed hydropower projects that would likely need Chinese funding ostensibly impact Mongolia’s relations with Russia and China too.

Yet Mongolia’s government embraced three internationalist initiatives in 2022. These are the Ulaanbaatar Dialogue (a regional security conference), a conference focused on “strengthening the role of women in peacekeeping” and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ visit to Ulaanbaatar in August.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2022, Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh discussed the need to find peaceful solutions to conflict, clearly pointing at Russia without mentioning its invasion of Ukraine explicitly.

This marked a decisive turn towards the formulation of a more nuanced position on relations with Russia. Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene also visited Germany and President Khurelsukh visited China and Japan in the second half of 2022 to bolster Mongolia’s international relations.

Still, whether Mongolia can find other sources of income beyond coal exports for fiscal stability remains uncertain.

On 5 December 2022, protests erupted in Ulaanbaatar after Mongolia’s government acknowledged suspicions of corruption at the state-owned coal miner, Erdenes-Tavantolgoi JSC. Young people initially dominated the protests, as had been the case with a series of similar protests in April.

Corruption allegations sparked the protests, but protestors were also frustrated with the government’s lack of follow-through on promises for improved social support following the Covid-19 pandemic, economic woes linked to the closure of China’s border adjacent to Mongolia and rampant inflation.

While many Mongolians initially suspected that internal MPP machinations were behind the protests, they appeared to be unorganized and spontaneous.

During the second week of protests in December, some protesters were camping out on Sukhbaatar Square in cold temperatures to demonstrate their determination. In response, Mongolia’s government promised to investigate the corruption allegations.

Mongolia’s government has staked its fiscal fortunes for 2023 on coal sales to China to pay its sovereign debt, making allegations of corruption in a state coal miner particularly poignant.

This occurs at a time when interest in Mongolia’s “third neighbor policy” — strengthening ties with countries besides Russia and China — has been revived in the face of Russian and Chinese authoritarianism.

The protests also reveal a desire in Mongolian society to reduce dependence on coal for energy supplies. This will be met with fierce opposition from the domestic coal industry. A small flurry of Australian-invested methane fracking projects in the country is unlikely to provide adequate “bridge fuels.”

The government’s precarious fiscal position, coupled with domestic dissatisfaction, make it unlikely that the Oyun-Erdene administration will survive until the next parliamentary elections in June 2024.

BY:

Julian Dierkes is Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. He is one of the principal authors of the Mongolia Focus blog.

At its regular meeting on January 25, the Cabinet made the following decisions:

The new structure of the National Committee for preparation for the Olympics was approved

A new structure of the National Committee in charge of preparatory works of national teams, which will participate in the Olympics and Paralympics was approved. The National Committee will be headed by the Prime Minister of Mongolia.

The preparatory works including selection and establishing the national team which will participate in Summer Olympics in 2024 and Winter Olympics in 2026, organizing the swearing-in ceremony, and other preparatory works, have already started.

A working group was established to develop proposals and conclusions for the implementation of anti-corruption work

In the framework of the goal to intensify the anti-corruption measures, included in the “Vision-2050” long-term development policy of Mongolia, the New Recovery Policy, and the 2020-2024 Action Plan of the Government of Mongolia, a working group was established to develop methodologies to eliminate bureaucracy, consolidate public opinions, study best practices of foreign countries and formulate proposals and conclusions for effective implementation of anti-corruption works.

Brief news

· The Cabinet decided to set the rate of customs duty on imported 92 octane gasoline at 0 percent from January 30, 2023, to January 1, 2024, and relevant officials were tasked to take measures to stabilize the supply and retail prices of gasoline and diesel fuel sold in the domestic market at a certain level and oversee their implementation.

· Conclusions and recommendations for a bill to amend the Law on budget, initiated and drafted by the member of State Great Khural G. Temuulen were discussed at the Cabinet meeting and the Cabinet decided to convey some of them to the bill initiator. The bill initiator drafted this bill to amend the Law on the Budget in order to ensure stability, completeness, and accuracy of budget, to create a legislative environment for proper budget management and accountability, and to clarify the mechanisms of public participation, external control, and state audit in the budgetary process of the Government.

· After discussing and supporting the draft agreement between the Government of Mongolia and the Government of the Republic of Maldives on the mutual exemption from visa requirements for holders of diplomatic, official, and ordinary passports, it was decided to issue an order of the Prime Minister on granting the right to sign the agreement.

· The Cabinet decided to award the 69th grand champion (yokozuna) of Japanese professional Sumo wrestling Hakuho M. Davaajargal, with the trophy named after the Prime Minister for recognizing his absolute victories, records set in sumo wrestling and contribution to promoting Mongolian strength and ingenuity.