China's top legislator Li Zhanshu held talks with Gombojav Zandanshatar, Mongolia's parliamentary speaker, via video link on Wednesday. Both sides agreed to enhance exchanges and cooperation between their legislative bodies.

Li, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said that under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, China and Mongolia have understood and supported each other and set a model of cooperation between neighboring countries in the fight against the pandemic, which illustrated the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind.

China and Mongolia should continue to strengthen mutual political trust in the post-pandemic period, further develop mutually beneficial cooperation, and accelerate the alignment of China's Belt and Road Initiative and Mongolia's Prairie Road development strategy, to better benefit the two peoples and promote the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership, Li said.

The two legislative bodies should continue to strengthen friendly exchanges, maintain close high-level exchanges, promptly approve, revise or issue legal documents that are conducive to improving bilateral ties, and strengthen exchanges of experience in implementing the rule of law, developing the economy, improving people's livelihoods, and maintaining stability.

Zandanshatar said the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the NPC and make positive contributions to promoting the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.

On March 31, the Government of Mongolia and the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) announced the entry-into-force of the $350 million Mongolia Water Compact designed to sustain economic growth and reduce poverty through the expansion of bulk water supply in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, and enhancing the long-term financial, institutional, and environmental sustainability of the water sector.

"We are delighted to announce the entry-into-force of the Mongolia Water Compact, which aims at enhancing the water supply of Ulaanbaatar and ensuring sustainable economic development. The entry-into-force today marks the official start of a five-year timeline to implement the Compact Program," said B. Battsetseg, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chair of the Board of Directors of MCA-Mongolia.

She further emphasized, “Over the past two years, we have worked to successfully meet the Conditions Precedent to the Compact entry-into-force, while undertaking necessary preparations for projects and activities to be funded by the Compact. Despite numerous challenges posed by the global pandemic, the Government of Mongolia was able to fulfill its responsibilities and enable the timely commencement of the Compact Program, as a result of efficient risk assessment practices and a focus on operational continuity.”

“A period of heightened responsibility is ahead of us to undertake the physical construction of two new water infrastructures in Ulaanbaatar,” noted E. Sodontogos, CEO of MCA-Mongolia. “We have to complete the projects within five years. In order to achieve that, MCA-Mongolia must always consider two critical factors: Schedule and Quality. Unlike other Compact countries, the construction season in Mongolia is substantially short. Therefore, we must plan and implement our work with great precision to race against time. Quality is of the essence. To ensure quality, contractors with both dedication and experience have to be selected to anticipate, mitigate, and manage the risks related with Covid-19 and others. We are confident that we will overcome potential challenges and successfully implement the Mongolia Water Compact through joint effort and mutual understanding of our stakeholders, including the Government of Mongolia, the Capital City authority, the private sector, the academia and the general public.”

The Government of Mongolia and the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation signed the $350 million Mongolia Water Compact on July 27, 2018. The Compact is funding major infrastructure projects, including the construction of new wellfields and two large plants - an Advanced Water Purification Plant and Wastewater Recycling Plant which will be the first of their kind in Mongolia. In addition, the Compact will invest in policy measures to create a financially and environmentally sustainable future for the water sector of Ulaanbaatar. By 2026, the water system in Ulaanbaatar will have been expanded to deliver 80% more drinking water, allowing for the city’s future expansion.

Source: MCA Mongolia

In Mongolia, 394 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the past 24 hours, reported at the regular press briefing of the Ministry of Health today on April 1.

Specifically, there were 266 new cases detected in the capital and the rest were recorded in the 13 provinces. Today, the total number of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Mongolia stands at 8841, of which 7266 cases were recorded in Ulaanbaatar and 1038 in provinces.

In the past 24 hours, 150 people have been discharged from the hospital, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,070. Currently 1,906 patients are receiving treatment at hospitals of the capital city and provinces.

Authorities in Mongolia plan to impose nationwide business and gathering controls April 3-18, while international travel controls are set to continue until at least May 1. Under the new directives, certain categories of nonessential businesses, including cinemas and gyms, must suspend operations. Businesses must close at 20:00 daily and enforce capacity limits. Restaurants cannot offer dine-in services. Public gatherings will be limited to no more than five people. The government also continues to require all people to wear facemasks in public nationwide.

Officials will likely continue highly localized lockdowns in residential buildings and businesses that have reported COVID-19 exposure. Residents, employees, and patrons of these locations must undergo COVID-19 testing and quarantine until receiving negative test results. Authorities will require close contacts of COVID-19 cases and their household members to quarantine for seven days, followed by a seven-day self-quarantine. Officials will require suspected cases originating from an outbreak site to quarantine for seven days.

Authorities continue to restrict travel from Ulaanbaatar to other areas of Mongolia; exceptions are in place for essential cargo shipments, healthcare workers, business trips, and charity work. Residents of the capital must present a negative result from a COVID-19 test taken within the previous 72 hours in order to leave the city. Individuals traveling from other parts of Mongolia must complete a health declaration form prior to entering Ulaanbaatar.

Travel RestrictionsInternational travel restrictions will stay in effect through at least May 1. International commercial flights remain banned; only repatriation services are operational for Mongolian nationals, permanent residents, and some long-term visa holders. Some charter flights for foreign nationals seeking to leave Mongolia are also authorized. International arrivals are required to quarantine in government-run facilities at their own expense for 10 days, followed by four days of self-quarantine.

International rail passenger transport remains suspended. Goods are generally allowed to move through border checkpoints, though intermittent land border closures are likely to continue.

Advice

Consider postponing travel to Mongolia if affected by travel restrictions. Register with your diplomatic mission if attempting to depart Mongolia. Follow all official instructions. Abide by national health and safety measures. Liaise with trusted contacts for further updates and guidance. Maintain contact with your diplomatic representation. Confirm all domestic transport arrangements. Ensure contingency plans account for further disruptive measures or extensions of current restrictions. Plan for potential shipping disruptions. Reconsider and reconfirm nonemergency health appointments.

Benin and Mongolia do not at first appear to have many similarities. One is a relatively small, but densely populated country in West Africa. The other is a large, but sparsely populated country in Central Asia. Yet, citizens in both countries have something in common: since 2020 they’ve had access to hundreds of new public services online.

In March 2020, the Government of Benin launched its national public services portal called service-public.bj which provides access to 70 transactional services like passport or building permit applications. It also delivers clear and coherent guidance on over 500 other public services. Soon after this, Benin launched an e-learning platform for public university students, and a website with the results of national public exams.

Meanwhile in Mongolia, the Government launched a platform available both online and through a smartphone app called e-Mongolia. E-Mongolia gives citizens access to the 181 most in-demand government services. Five months after its launch, e-Mongolia had been used by 700,000 people – that’s over 35 per cent of its adult population.

These new online services came at a perfect time, as governments tried to limit in-person interactions with citizens during the covid-19 crisis. This article looks at how these achievements were made possible, as well as the common features behind these two countries’ digital transformation success stories.

1. Supportive political leaders and committed operational leaders

In both countries, political leaders have put the digital transformation of public services at the core of their agendas. Patrice Talon, President of Benin since 2016, made this clear in his five-year action plan ‘Bénin Révélé’. He also names connectivity, digital literacy and smart administration as key development areas.

The same applies in Mongolia. The 40-year-old and recently appointed Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene has affirmed that building a digital nation is currently the country’s top priority.

But strong political support on its own is not enough. In Benin and Mongolia, much of the credit should be given to the women in charge of driving the digital transformation of their respective governments: Aurélie Adam Soulé Zoumarou and Bolor-Erdene Battsengel.

Aurélie Adam Soulé Zoumarou is the Minister of Digital Affairs and Digitalisation of Benin. She was appointed to this role by President Patrice Talon in 2017. Since then, she has led a wide range of programmes covering digital infrastructures, smart administration and support for technology start-up companies.

Bolor-Erdene Battsengels was appointed the Chairwoman of Mongolia’s Communications and Information Technology Authority (CITA) in July 2020. At 27 years old, she is the youngest person and first female to hold this position. For her first three months in CITA, she oversaw the implementation of the e-Mongolia platform.

2. Empowered central digital agencies

The digital transformation of the governments of Benin and Mongolia also rely on an efficient governance model, where a central digital agency is empowered to drive change.

The Information Services and Systems Agency of Benin (ASSI) is the country’s central organisation in charge of executing flagship projects in digital government. It provides strategic and operational assistance to all government organisations, and ensures the coherence of information systems and services across public administration. The ASSI is directly under the direct supervision of the Presidency.

In Mongolia, the Communications and Information Technology Authority (CITA) is in charge of both ICT policy making and its implementation and it is responsible for the development of e-Mongolia. The fact CITA is placed under the authority of the Prime Minister gives it great legitimacy in leading cross-government projects.

In both countries, that direct link to government decision-makers has proven paramount to the success of these agencies, reaffirming their authority as well as allowing for swift transformation when necessary.

3. Existing connectivity and digital infrastructure

Benin and Mongolia did not wait for the covid-19 crisis to kickstart their digital transformation. The speed at which they were able to launch services in 2020 reflects the ground work they laid in previous years. Likewise, the early adoption of digital services by citizens could not have been possible without the significant efforts demonstrated by both countries in terms of infrastructure development in the past few years.

Since 2016, 2,000 kilometres of optical fibre has been installed across Benin which has helped the country more than double its internet coverage. And in order to reach citizens from all communities, they have set up a network of over 40 Community Digital Points, which are effectively public spaces where citizens can access computers and get online.

Alongside connectivity infrastructure, Benin and Mongolia have invested in digital infrastructure. It is worth mentioning that both countries have based their data infrastructure on the open source data exchange solution X-Road.

Mongolia started to use the X-Road model as early as 2016 to connect the information systems of all its ministries. But it took time to implement the system, and encourage data sharing across public administrations.

4. Engagement with citizens, and the private sector

Both Benin and Mongolia have understood the value of working hand-in-hand with the civil society, and the private sector. In October 2020 – prior to the development of a national e-payment platform – the ASSI organised a discovery workshop with various players in the financial sector. It welcomed comments and ideas from private actors to inform the development and implementation of the platform.

The Government of Benin was also receptive to help from private sector and civil society actors when the covid-19 crisis started. Start-up companies, SMEs, large corporates, academics, NGOs and government agencies gathered in 2020 to create ‘Taskforce INNOV covid-19’ and brainstorm on innovative solutions to the challenges caused by the crisis.

In Mongolia, CITA engaged with citizens to prioritise the services to include in the e-Mongolia platform. They conducted a survey, available both online and on paper. They also tracked the time citizens spent queuing to access public services. They kept engaging with citizens while developing the platform, to make sure all information was clear, and that services were easy to use.

In order to go fast, and keep momentum, CITA outsourced the development of the platform. However, they created a small project coordination unit in-house, to hold service providers accountable, and coordinate all stakeholders from the 28 government organisations involved.

2020: the year when previous hard work paid dividends

Benin and Mongolia made tremendous progress in government digital transformation last year. But that’s the result of a long, slow process that started years before. They’d already laid the essential foundations they could build on, including recruiting and empowering committed leaders, putting the right digital governance in place, investing in digital infrastructure, and creating channels to engage with civil society and private sector actors.

Compared with many countries, the covid-19 crisis has not had such a significant impact on the digital transformation plans of Benin and Mongolia because they already knew where they were heading – the pandemic only confirmed they were going the right way.

On March 31, the cabinet convened for a regular meeting and decided not to move the country into the Red Level or the all-out-readiness regime starting from April 3, Saturday, until April 18, Sunday despite the State Emergency Commission has suggested to impose strict lockdown mesures to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

However, during this period, some businesses and organizations will be suspended. According to the cabinet secretariat, this measure is made under the government’s objective to recover the economy and protect the population's health amid the pandemic while maintaining the normal operations of the business industry.

Following businesses and services are suspended between April 3 and 18:

- Restaurants, lounges, saunas, swimming pools, wellness centers, cinemas and performance and entertainment activities, gyms, resorts and training centers

- Food places and restaurants can only offer food via delivery

- Hairdressers and beauty centers are allowed to open only on weekdays with proper health and safety precautions

- Shops and retail businesses must strictly adhere to social distancing and infection prevention guidelines and operate at up to 30 percent of its capacity. /Supermarkets to limit customers with the number of shopping carts available/

- Large marketplaces, such as Narantuul, Kharkhorin, Bars, Khuchit Shonkhor, Narantuul-2 to operate at up to 30 percent capacity only on weekdays.

- Shops, retails and markets to close at 8 PM daily.

- Passenger movement out of Ulaanbaatar to rural areas are suspended, except for those with reasonable excuses

- Traffic movement to rural aimags from Ulaanbaatar to be suspended, except for the delivery of food, fodder and fuel products.

Certain arrangements are also to be made, including:

- Public and private industry must enforce 5-person limit for social gatherings at all levels.

- People aged over 60 to avoid leaving home for non-essential reasons and take preventative measures against infection

- To intensify neighborhood connection and volunteer activities for safety

- Government and private organizations to allow up to 30 percent of employees to work from office.

Measures to be implemented in the scope of the transmission surveillance and vaccination drive are:

- To intensify works to trace close contacts

- To provide those staying at 7-day home isolation with dedicated package of health manual, medications, vitamins, thermometer and sanitizers

- To shorten mandatory 10-day-quarantine for arrivals from foreign countries to 7 days and perform PCR tests on the arrivals on the 5th and 7th days of the quarantine, and to remove further home-isolation to those with negative test results

- To vaccinate 1 million adult populations in Ulaanbaatar city before May 1, and vaccinate homeless people and prisoners requiring special care

- To vaccinate priority groups for vaccination /doctors, healthcare workers, police, emergency management and border officers/ in rural aimags starting April 5

- To complete vaccination in rural areas by July 1.

During its regular meeting held on March 31, the cabinet heard a presentation on the programs to support the country’s economy within the framework of the ‘MNT 10 trillion Comprehensive Plan for Health Protection and Economic Recovery’.

Loan program to support employment: As of March 29, commercial banks have issued loans totaling MNT 152.8 billion to 343 entities and 2,088 individuals. Average loan amount granted to individuals is MNT 38 million, and MNT 210 million for companies.

Long-term repo financing loan program: MNT 185.5 billion worth of loans were issued to 1,078 businesses and 280 individuals. Average loan amount granted to individuals is MNT 123 million, and MNT 140 million for businesses.

Mortgage loans: 2,043 borrowers received MNT 153.8 billion of mortgage loans in total. The average mortgage amount issued in Ulaanbaatar is MNT 83 million and MNT 55 million in rural areas.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a 100-million-U.S.-dollar loan to strengthen Mongolia's health sector and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank's office in Mongolia said Wednesday.

"Mongolia remains vulnerable to COVID-19 and other emerging diseases. A surge in infections would strain the health system and result in a shortage of quarantine facilities, necessary equipment, drugs, and other essential resources," said James Lynch, director general of the East Asia Regional Department of the ADB.

He said that the project will expedite the medium-term reforms that will strengthen the health system and help Mongolia become better prepared to respond to future health crises.

The project will focus on four reform areas: strengthening planning and preparedness of the health sector, and ensuring the availability of critical medicines and emergency supplies; improving national pharmaceutical regulation, and increasing hospital autonomy and good governance; enhancing procurement in the health sector to increase efficiency, and establishing a single purchaser for health services; and safeguarding fiscal sustainability of the government over the next three to five years, said the ADB.

As of Wednesday, Mongolia has confirmed around 8,500 COVID-19 cases, with 12 deaths.

It is estimated that about 60 percent of the country's 3.3 million population is at high risk of infection.

According to a 2017 World Health Organization evaluation, Mongolia's core capacities relating to pandemic preparedness are limited, suggesting Mongolia is ill-prepared for a surge of COVID-19 or a similar pandemic. Enditem

Chinese phone maker Xiaomi is wading into electric vehicles with a $10bn (£7.3bn) investment over ten years.

The Chinese tech giant's goal is to "offer quality smart electric vehicles," it said on Tuesday.

Xiaomi is the world's third largest smartphone maker behind Apple and Samsung, according to data firm Canalys.

The company will be entering a fiercely competitive electric car market that also includes rivals Apple and Huawei.

Xiaomi will set up a wholly-owned subsidiary with an initial investment of about $1.5bn, with the company's chief executive Lei Jun heading up the new venture.

"The decision was made after numerous rounds of deliberation among all our partners, and this will be the final major entrepreneurial project of my life," he said in a statement.

So far, the company has given no indication about whether it will produce budget models or target the top end of the market.

There are already hundreds of companies in China jostling for a share of the world's leading market for electric cars.

Planned or existing models in China range from the tiny Hong Guang Mini EV, which retails for $4,500 to the new high-end electric brand Zeekr, which is owned by China's biggest carmaker Geely.

Foreign manufacturers are also looking to build EVs for Chinese consumers.

Tesla is already delivering its Model Y to China from its Shanghai factory, while Ford has plans to manufacture the electric version of its Mustang there.

Partnering up

Other Chinese technology companies have also signalled their intention to make cars, or to partner with existing carmakers to produce new driving technologies.

Search engine giant Baidu announced in January it would also launch an electric car business.

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba has formed an EV joint venture with SAIC, while ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing has partnered with automaker BYD to make electric vehicles specifically designed for its services.

Data provider S&P Global Platts estimates that "new energy vehicles" will account for 20% of total new car sales in China by 2025.

Steppe Gold (TSX: STGO) today announced that the company’s revenue for the year ended December 31, 2020 was $52 million on sales of 31,733 gold ounces and 13,710 silver ounces with average realized prices per ounce of $1,822 and $20, respectively.

The company’s operating income from mine operations, before depreciation and depletion, was $33 million and consolidated group adjusted EBITDA for the year was $24 million. Year-end cash, restricted cash and savings accounts balance was $33 million.

During the year ended December 31, 2020, 1,138,209 tonnes of ore were mined and 699,204 tonnes of ore stacked with an average gold grade of 2.03 g/t and an average silver grade of 8.88 g/t.

Steppe Gold noted that it is very pleased with a strong start to production at the ATO gold mine in Mongolia, with operating cash flow from mine operations in 2020 of $33 million, on revenue of $52 million, in an approximate 9 months of production.

President and CEO Bataa Tumur-Ochir added, "We have now mined approximately 1.7m tonnes of ore and 1.25m tonnes stacked on the leach pad. With a new fixed crusher in place this summer, we are planning a record year for stacking in 2021. With the ATO resource now at 2.45m oz Au Eq, and procurement of long lead capital items underway, we are focused on increasing our production run rate from the oxide phase through 2021 and 2022 and executing the Phase 2 expansion which has already begun."

Steppe Gold is targeting annual production in 2021 and 2022 of between 50,000 to 60,000 oz and then a transition to the fresh rock ores in 2023. Production forecasts for 2021 are dependent on a restart of leaching in April 2021 and no further delays on procurement due to COVID-19.

By Vladimir Basov