Australia in first recession for nearly 30 years www.bbc.com

Australia's economy has plunged into its first recession in nearly 30 years, as it suffers the economic fallout from the coronavirus.

Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 7% in the April-to-June quarter compared to the previous three months.

This is the biggest fall since records began back in 1959 and comes after a fall of 0.3% in the first quarter.

An economy is considered to be in recession if it sees two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

Australia was the only major economy to avoid a recession during the 2008 global financial crisis - mainly due to demand from China for its natural resources.

At the start of this year, the economy was hit by falling economic growth due to an extreme bush fire season and the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.

More recently the shutdowns of businesses across the country have taken their toll, despite measures by the government and central bank to support the economy.

This is the worst economic growth in 61 years due to a severe contraction in household spending on goods and services.

2020 will go down as a year to remember and a year everyone is already trying to forget! It's the year Australia technically lost its famous nickname as 'The Lucky Country' and fell into recession for the first time in almost three decades.

GDP figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics have shown that the economy shrank by 7% in the last three months as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

For young people who have recently joined the work force, this is something they've never experienced before. Australia has had a steady economy growth for decades with strong coal, iron ore and natural gas exports to a surging China. Tourism has also been a big driver of growth.

But this year, the country was hit hard. Twice. When the bushfires ravaged through more than 12 million hectares, tourism was bashed and thousands of small business lost months of essential seasonal revenue. Then the coronavirus became a global pandemic. Australia closed down its borders and imposed strict social distancing rules.

Nearly 1 million people lost their jobs as a result. I remember watching the long queues outside social and financial support offices back in March with people dazed at finding themselves in this situation perhaps for the first time in their lives.

There's also an increasingly tense relationship with China, Australia's biggest trading partner. Australia has strongly and publicly backed a global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus in April which infuriated the Chinese government. Since then, Canberra and Beijing have exchanged political jabs and the Australian economy has felt the pinch.

Scott Morrison's government has already pumped more than A$200bn (£110bn; US$147bn) in economic stimulus. Australia has fared better than many other nations around the world in controlling the virus and in subsequent economic slump but this country of abundance will have to face a much harsher reality for a few years to come.

Australia last fell into recession in mid-1990 which ran into late 1991.

But the coronavirus pandemic has been a major blow to the Australian economy, although the figure is slightly better than the 8% fall Australia's reserve bank had earlier forecast.

Despite the severe drop in economic activity, Australia is doing better than most other advanced economies that have experienced bigger downturns.

The US economy, the world's biggest, shrank 9.5% between April and June while the UK's shrank by 20.4% pushing it into recession as well.

France's economy fell by 13.8% and Japan's by 7.6%.

46 electric buses to be put into service in October www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Next month, a total of 46 electric buses, 10 double-decker and 36 single-decker buses, will be put into public transport service in Ulaanbaatar.

Ivanhoe expects first copper at Kakula in less than a year www.mining.com

Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) expects to begin producing copper at its Kakula project in the Democratic Republic of Congo in less than a year, as total underground development to date has surpassed the 20 km mark – about 6 km ahead of schedule.

Students in Inner Mongolia Protest Chinese Language Policy www.nytimes.com

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ethnic Mongolians, including students and parents, in China’s Inner Mongolia region are demonstrating their anger in rare public protests against a new bilingual education policy that they say is endangering the Mongolian language.

A high school student in the city of Hulunbuir said students rushed out of their school on Tuesday and destroyed a fence before paramilitary police swarmed in and tried to return them to class.

“We senior students were talking and we thought we had to do something,” said the student, Narsu, who like most Mongolians has only one name. “Although this doesn’t directly affect us now, this will have a huge impact on us in the future.”

The policy, announced on Monday ahead of the start of the new school year, requires schools to use new national textbooks in Chinese, replacing Mongolian-language textbooks. Protesters say they were aware of demonstrations and classroom walkouts in Hohhot, the provincial capital, as well as in the cities of Chifeng and Tongliao and Xilin Gol prefecture.

Nuomin, the mother of a kindergarten student in Hulunbuir, said she saw police in places she normally wouldn't and a metal barrier in front of one school. She has kept her child home since Monday.

"Many of us parents will continue to keep our kids at home, until they bring Mongolian back in those classes,” she said.

In 2017, the ruling Communist Party created a committee to overhaul textbooks for the entire country. Revised textbooks have been pushed out over the last few years.

The new policy for Inner Mongolia, a northern province that borders the country of Mongolia, affects schools where Mongolian is been the principal language of instruction.

Literature classes for elementary and middle school students at the Mongolian-language schools will switch to a national textbook and be taught in Mandarin Chinese.

Next year, the politics and morality course will also switch to Mandarin, as will history classes starting in 2022. Remaining classes, such as math, will not change their language of instruction.

Students will also start learning Mandarin in first grade. Previously, they started in second grade.

The move follows similar ones in other ethnic areas. In Tibet and Xinjiang, the primary language of instruction in such schools has become Mandarin, and the minority language is a language class.

The education bureau in Inner Mongolia did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.

China has been changing education under a new model of assimilation into the Han majority culture that leaves behind Soviet-inspired policies of promoting minority language education.

President Xi Jinping has said that if people don't speak the same language, it is difficult to communicate and achieve understanding.

“The ethnic minority schools, if they study well the language of communication in the country, it will be of great benefit to them in employment, in learning modern scientific and cultural knowledge and allow them to integrate into society," he said at a Central Ethnic Work conference in 2014. His words were quoted in the most recent policy document.

But for ethnic Mongolians, the new directive is creating fear that they will lose their mother tongue.

In the city of Tongliao, parents decided to take their children home from a boarding school on Monday. Many parents only found out about the policy after they had dropped off their children at school, said Nure Zhang, a Tongliao resident.

But authorities at one elementary school, backed by police, refused to let parents take back their children, according to Zhang, who attended the protest.

There were multiple clashes as parents and others rushed at the police, trying to get into the school, Zhang said. “They used a human wall to block us. We kept on singing and shouting slogans,” he said. The police used pepper spray twice on the protesters, he added.

At 9 p.m., the school principal and local officials said parents could take their children home.

Now the Mongolian-medium schools sit quiet in Tongliao. Local Communist Party leaders have been visiting each family to try to get the students to return, Zhang said.

Authorities have banned a popular Mongolian-language social media platform called Bainu.

Zhang, a parent as well, said he already felt they were heavily influenced by the Han, who make up 79% of Inner Mongolia's 25 million residents, according to the most recent census data from 2015. Ethnic Mongolians make up 17%.

“Now Chinese class is literature class, Chinese is the primary language and Mongolian has become a supplementary language," he said. “If this continues for 10 years, 20 years later, our language will slowly be forgotten."

Mongolia brings back over 250 nationals from U.S. amid COVID-19 pandemic www.xinhuanet.com

Mongolia has brought back a total of 254 stranded nationals from the United States on a chartered flight under the government's evacuation plan amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Central bank updates financial statistics www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Last week, the Bank of Mongolia provided update on the financial indicators of Mongolia and introduced the latest or 14th financial stability report released by the central bank jointly with other regulatory agencies.

As introduced by G.Dulguun, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Mongolia, the financial stability report highlighted about the negative impact posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial market stability of the country. Changes in the balance of payment, revenues and lending show the effect of the pandemic on Mongolia’s economy. In particular, the price and volume of export commodities have been dropping, leading to the decline in the export revenues.

In the second half of this year, the balance of payment deficit equaled to USD 679.2 million, and the government budget deficit decreased by 21.4 percent compared to the same period of last year and government budget balance showed a deficit of MNT 2.2 trillion.

Moreover, individuals and business entities who are suffering decline in their revenues due to the pandemic have also faced challenges to repay their loans, eventually posing risk to the financial industry. In order to stabilize the situation and stimulate economic growth, the central bank lowered the policy rate twice down to 9 percent and extended the maturity on consumer loans once up to 12 months for lenders experiencing difficulties, hence reducing the monthly loan repayments.

According to the report, in spite of the decline of the effectiveness in the banking industry as well as loan issuance rate, owner’s equity sufficiency and liquidity coverage ratio remain adequate. A study conducted by the National Statistics Office of Mongolia shows that economic and financial statistical indicators of all sectors, but banking sector, have been relatively stable.

The central bank also presented that money supply (M2) in Mongolia rose by 5.8 percent, reaching MNT 21.5 trillion, as of the first seven months of 2020, mostly influenced by foreign currency and Mongolian Tugrug savings.

Total loans in the banking industry reached MNT 17.2 trillion, as of the first seven months of 2020, which is made up of MNT 15.6 trillion of loans in Tugrug currency and MNT 1,6 trillion borrowings in foreign currencies.

Compared to the previous month, the total loan amount lowered by 0.3 percent, and nonperforming loans and overdue loans grew by MNT 24.6 billion and MNT 128 billion respectively, accounting for 11.3 percent and 6.6 percent of total loans. Average interest rate of new loans in Tugrug currency issued last month is 15.8 percent and 10.6 percent in foreign currencies. In July 2020, banks have issued mortgages to 1077 new borrowers, totaling MNT 74.8 billion. The weighted average interest rate of new mortgages equals to 10.7 percent. Average interest rate of savings in Tugrug currency is 10.5 percent and 3.2 percent in foreign currencies.

According to the central bank, total external debts of Mongolia reached USD 30.8 billion in the second quarter of 2020, climbing by USD 300 million since previous quarter. The growth reflects soft loans received from the Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund and the People’s Republic of China and an increase of market price of government-issued securities.

Thermal power plants to be built in 10 aimags in cooperation with ROK www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Minister of Energy N.Tavinbekh has received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to Mongolia Lee Yeo-hong.

Mongolia confirms two more COVID-19 cases, 306 in total www.akipress.com

Two COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Mongolia today, the Ministry of Health said.

Citi receives China fund custody licence www.reuters.com

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Citigroup (C.N) China unit has received a domestic fund custody licence from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the bank said on Wednesday, the latest foreign financial firm to expand its presence in mainland China.

Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee indicted over controversial merger in South Korea www.cnn.com

Seoul (CNN Business)Samsung's de facto leader Lee Jae-yong may be headed back to prison.

Lee, the billionaire Samsung vice chairman and son of ailing chairman Lee Kun-hee, was indicted on Tuesday over a controversial 2015 merger that helped him tighten control over the company.
Seoul's Central District Prosecutors' Office said at a briefing that 11 executives from Samsung, including Lee, have been indicted on charges including illegal transactions, stock manipulation and perjury. Lee and the executives were indicted without detention, which means they weren't taken into custody.
Lawyers for Samsung denied the charges, saying in a statement that they are "one-sided claims by the investigation team that are not based on evidence and law, and by no means true."
Lee, who is also known as Jay Y. Lee, was previously found guilty of bribery and other corruption charges in 2017. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but walked free after less than a year when an appeals court threw out some of the charges and suspended his sentence.

That case was dubbed the "trial of the century," and it gripped South Korea for months. It was part of a huge influence-peddling scandal that brought down the government of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Last August, South Korea's top court ordered a new trial for Lee, reigniting the bribery allegations and raising concerns that the technology scion could be sent back to prison. That case is still ongoing.
Prosecutors on Tuesday said the 2015 merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was undertaken in a manner that allegedly benefited Lee and allowed him to gain a tighter grip on Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of his family's sprawling conglomerate.
During the merger, prosecutors allege that Lee and his executives illegally spread false information, conducted illegal lobbying and manipulated stock prices.
But Samsung's lawyers say that interrogations and previous related cases have confirmed that the merger was done in compliance with government regulations.
The latest investigation was conducted "with the aim of prosecuting Lee Jae-yong from the beginning, rather than seeking the actual truth according to evidence," the lawyers said.

Samsung is South Korea's biggest conglomerate. Its combined businesses are estimated to account for around 15% of the country's entire economy. Samsung Electronics, the biggest part of the group, is one of the world's leading smartphone makers and a vital supplier of memory chips and display screens.
Shares in Samsung Electronics ended the day up 0.4%.
Lee has been the de facto leader of Samsung since his father was left incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014.
Earlier this year, the billionaire said that he would not be handing the management of Samsung Group over to his children. He also apologized for shortcomings in his leadership of the company, acknowledging that Samsung has "failed, at times, to meet society's expectations."