Mongolia reports no new cases of coronavirus for a week www.news.mn

Mongolia’s coronavirus cases reached to 293 on 3 August after two peacekeepers were confirmed as having COVID-19. Since then, three more recoveries have been reported with no new cases. So far, Mongolia has had 293 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 263 recoveries. Currently, 30 patients with coronavirus are undergoing treatment at the National Centre for Communicative Diseases.

If WHO approves coronavirus vaccine, China will send it to Mongolia - China's Ambassador www.akipress.com

Vice Prime Minister of Mongolia Yangug Sodbaatar met with Ambassador of China to Mongolia Chai Wenrui.

Request put forth to increase coal trucks to China to 2,000 www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On August 10, Deputy Prime Minister Ya.Sodbaatar met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to Mongolia Chai Wenrui, sharing views on the intensification of the implementation of “Green Gateway” temporary regulation.

Is the world winning the pandemic fight? www.bbc.com

It is little more than six months since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the arrival of a new virus a global emergency.

On that day, at the end of January, there had been almost 10,000 reported cases of coronavirus and more than 200 people had died. None of those cases were outside of China.

Since then the world, and our lives, have changed profoundly. So how are we faring in this battle between the human race and the coronavirus?

If we take the planet as a whole, the picture is looking rough.

There have been more than 19 million confirmed cases and 700,000 deaths. At the start of the pandemic it was taking weeks to clock up each 100,000 infections, now those milestones are measured in hours.

"We're still in the midst of an accelerating, intense and very serious pandemic," Dr Margaret Harris, from the WHO, told me. "It's there in every community in the world."

While this is a single pandemic, it is not one single story. The impact of Covid-19 is different around the world and it is easy to blind yourself to the reality beyond your own country.

But one fact unites everyone, whether they make their home in the Amazon rainforest, the skyscrapers of Singapore or the late-summer streets of the UK: this is a virus that thrives on close human contact. The more we come together, the easier it will spread. That is as true today as when the virus first emerged in China.

This central tenet explains the situation wherever you are in the world and dictates what the future will look like.

It is driving the high volume of cases in Latin America - the current epicentre of the pandemic - and the surge in India. It explains why Hong Kong is keeping people in quarantine facilities or the South Korean authorities are monitoring people's bank accounts and phones. It illustrates why Europe and Australia are struggling to balance lifting lockdowns and containing the disease. And why we are trying to find a "new normal" rather than the old one.

"This is a virus circulating all over the planet. It affects every single one of us. It goes from human to human, and highlights that we are all connected," said Dr Elisabetta Groppelli, from St George's, University of London. "It's not just about travel, it's speaking and spending time together - that's what humans do."

Even the simple act of singing together spreads the virus.

It has also proven to be an exceptionally tricky virus to track, causing mild or no symptoms for many, but deadly enough to others to overwhelm hospitals.

"It's the perfect pandemic virus of our time. We are now living in the time of coronavirus," said Dr Harris.

Where there has been success, it is through breaking the ability of the virus to spread from one person to the next. New Zealand gets the most attention. They acted early, while there were still few cases in the country: locked down, sealed their borders and now have barely any cases. Life is largely back to normal.

Getting the basics right has helped in poorer countries too. Mongolia has the longest shared border with China, where the pandemic began. The country could have been badly impacted. However, not a single case requiring intensive care occurred until July. To date they have only had 293 diagnoses and no deaths.

"Mongolia has done a good job with very limited resources. They did 'shoe-leather epidemiology' isolating cases, identifying contacts and isolating those contacts," said Prof David Heymann, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

They also rapidly closed schools, restricted international travel and were early promoters of face masks and hand-washing.

On the other hand, Prof Heymann argues, a "lack of political leadership" has hampered many countries where "public health leaders and political leaders have difficulty speaking together". In such a climate, the virus has flourished. US president Donald Trump and the country's top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, have clearly been on different pages, if not completely different books, during the pandemic. Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro joined anti-lockdown rallies, described the virus as "a little flu" and said the pandemic was nearly over in March.

Instead, in Brazil alone, 2.8 million people have been infected and nearly 100,000 have died.

But countries that have got on top of the virus - mostly through painful, society-crippling lockdowns - are finding it has not gone away, will spread again if we relax our guard and that normality is still elusively distant.

"They're discovering it's more challenging coming out of lockdown than going in," said Dr Groppelli. "They haven't thought about how we can co-exist with the virus."

Australia is one of the countries trying to chart a path out of lockdown, but the state of Victoria is now in "disaster" mode. Melbourne went back into lockdown in early July, but - as contagion continues - has since imposed even stricter rules. Now there is a night-time curfew and people are expected to exercise within 5km of their homes.

Europe too is opening up, but Spain, France and Greece have all reported their highest number of cases in weeks. Germany has reported more than 1,000 cases a day for the first time in three months.

Wearing face masks, once an oddity, is now commonplace in Europe, with even some beach resorts insisting upon it.

And - in a warning to us all - past success is no guarantee for the future. Hong Kong was widely praised for resisting the first wave of coronavirus - now bars and gyms have been closed again, while its Disneyland resort managed to keep the gates open for less than a month.

"Leaving lockdown does not mean back to the old ways. It's a new normal. People have not got that message at all," Dr Harris said.

Africa's position in the fight against coronavirus remains an open question. There have been more than one million cases; after a successful start, South Africa looks to be in a bad place, with the majority of cases on the continent. But relatively little testing means a crystal clear picture is difficult.

And there is the enigma of Africa's notably lower death rate compared with the rest of the world. Here are some of the suggestions as to why:

Health problems common to richer countries, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, which increase Covid risk, are less common in Africa
Countries are innovating in response. Rwanda has been using drones to deliver supplies to hospitals and broadcast coronavirus restrictions. They are even being used to catch those flouting the rules, as one church-bound pastor found out.

But as with parts of India, south east Asia and beyond, access to clean water and sanitation undermines the simplest hand-washing messages.

"There are people that have water to wash their hands and those that do not," Dr Groppelli said. "This is a major difference, we can pretty much break the world in two. And there is a big question mark about how they control the virus unless there is a vaccine."

Already there are drug treatments. Dexamethasone - a cheap steroid - has been shown to save some of the sickest patients. But it is not enough to stop all Covid-19 patients dying or to lift the need for all restrictions. Close attention will be paid to Sweden in the coming months to see whether its strategy is rewarded in the longer term. It didn't lock down, but so far has had a significantly higher death rate than its neighbours, after failing to protect people in care homes.

Generally, the world's hopes of getting life back to normal are pinned on a vaccine. Immunising people breaks the virus's ability to spread.

There are six vaccines now entering phase three clinical trials. This is the critical stage when we will discover if the vaccines that appear promising actually work. The final hurdle is also the point where many a medicine has stumbled. Health officials say the emphasis should remain on "if" we get a vaccine not "when".

Dr Margaret Harris, of WHO, said: "People have this Hollywood-esque belief in a vaccine; that scientists are just going to fix it. In a two-hour film the end comes pretty quickly, but scientists aren't Brad Pitt, injecting themselves and saying 'we're all going to be saved'."

“Foreign currency reserves enough to cover Mongolia’s imports for 9 months” www.montsame.mn

Director of the Reserve Management and Financial Markets Department of the Bank of Mongolia (BoM) A.Enkhjin gave an interview to MONTSAME News Agency about the Central Bank’s policy during the pandemic as well as the economic outlook.

-What measures are being implemented by the Bank of Mongolia during the COVID-19 pandemic?

-The Bank of Mongolia is implementing all possible measures required to reduce the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impact on the sectors of economy, banking, and finance based on good practices of other countries and corresponding law and regulations. Without limiting the measures to monetary policy methods, some requirements and criteria followed by banks in the framework of appropriate macro policies and monitoring are also being implemented.

The public may have heard about several announced measures that have been taken so far, such as lowering the police rate by 2 percentage points, reducing the required amount of reserves at banks, allowing loan repayment deferrals, and increasing the list of collateral allowed to acquire financing from the central bank.

Alongside these measures, the BoM is currently doing various other works, including the re-implementation of the mortgage loan program in compliance with the corresponding law approved by the parliament, deferral of the loan repayment by up to 6 months, and provision of soft loans to entities involved in gold mining in aims of increasing the foreign exchange reserves of Mongolia.

-The demand is high for mortgage loans in our country. Has there been any changes in the requirements for mortgage loans? And what is the amount of financing available for 2020?

-The BoM has made the following changes to the mortgage loan program due to the current state of the economy. Citizens who acquired mortgage loans with interest rates of 5 and 8 percent have become able to defer their loan repayment by up to 6 months once if they submitted a request to their corresponding bank before the end of April 2020. With changes made to the loan repayment dates according to the requests of the clients, loans amounting to a total of MNT 2 trillion of 38,270 borrowers have been involved in the regulation.

Furthermore, for the clients that did not make any changes to the loan repayment dates, a decision has been made to disburse the amount equal to 2 percentage points for 3 months, which is estimated to reach 34,358 borrowers with a total loan amount of about MNT 1.4 trillion.

While previously, real estate in the clients’ possession was the only available form of collateral as down payment to acquire mortgage loans, changes were made to the procedure, making it possible to also use real estate in the co-borrower’s possession as collateral. As a result, people who do not possess any real estate under their name, such as young families, now have a more flexible set of conditions to be involved in the mortgage loan program.

The central bank is also working in cooperation with the Capital City Housing Corporation on a new option for public administrative and public special servants working in high-risk environments, in which they will be able to hold possession of apartments through rental purchase.

As for the financing of the program, banks have provided a total of MNT 120 billion allocated by the BoM in the first half of 2020 to 1,646 borrowers. In the duration up to the end of 2020, plans are currently set in place for both sides of the BoM and commercial banks to provide MNT 150 billion, giving out a total of about MNT 300 billion to about 4,500 borrowers. Moreover, it is estimated that about 1,000-1,500 officers will be able to own apartments through rental purchases in the framework of the measures to be implemented by the Capital City Housing Corporation.

-Could you tell us about BoM’s effort to provide financing for gold mining companies?

-BoM and the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry are working together to increase the country’s foreign exchange reserve in accordance with the Law on COVID-19 prevention, fight, and mitigation of its socioeconomic impacts and the parliamentary resolution No.32 of 2020. As part of the effort, BoM made regulations to provide current assets and investments on softer terms in order to increase gold mining and concluded contracts with banks. The financing will improve the capacity of gold mining companies and raise the amount of gold sold to BoM, thus playing an important role in increasing national foreign exchange reserve. BoM has purchased 10.8 tons of gold and other precious metals in the first six months of 2020, an increase of 4.8 tons or around 80 percent compared to the same period of last year.

-Money supply has increased with the adoption of those measures. How will it affect the official foreign exchange rates?

-As stated in the Law on Central Bank (Bank of Mongolia), the main objective of BoM shall be to ensure stability of the tugrug currency. Under the objective, BoM aims to keep consumer price index inflation rate within the target range in the medium term in accordance with the State Monetary Policy Guidelines. BoM’s 2020 target range for inflation is 8 percent and the central bank has set a goal to keep inflation rate at 6 percent in the medium term. The way that the inflation rate has decreased over the last five months and was 2.8 percent on national level and 2.4 percent in Ulaanbaatar in June proves the possibility of implementing soft monetary policy. Therefore, the pressure on foreign exchange rates could be relatively minor.

-How has the foreign exchange rate changed since the beginning of the year?

-The Bank of Mongolia intervenes in the foreign exchange market from time to time in order to reduce the risk of a sharp depreciation of the tugrug, which can be temporary due to supply and demand gaps. These policy decisions are aimed at keeping inflation, which is the central bank's main goal, and ensuring the stability of the economy and financial system.

The official foreign exchange rate depreciated by 3.3 percent in the first half of 2020, and the Bank of Mongolia supplied USD 615.0 million in net foreign exchange. In addition, the Bank of Mongolia has entered into short-term MNT and USD swap agreements to support banks in ensuring their short-term liquidity.

The Bank of Mongolia will continue to maintain its policy of avoiding sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate. As of June 2020, the country's foreign exchange reserves are at USD 3.6 billion, which is enough to meet the demand for imports of products for 9 months that is required to be paid by foreign exchanges. The Bank of Mongolia has reached an agreement with the People's Bank of China to extend the MNT-RMB swap agreement for another three years. Moreover, The Trade and Development Bank (TDB) successfully repaid its USD 500 million international bond in May. This is expected to have a positive effect on the exchange rate as no major foreign payments are expected until April next year.

The trade balance, which has been in deficit since the beginning of this year, turned positive in May and June. Exports in June increased by USD 188.7 million compared with the previous month, including exports of mining sector by USD 148.9 million. In the future, coal exports will increase and efforts to support gold mining will have a positive impact on the country's foreign exchange reserves. In general, we do not see any sharp changes in the foreign exchange market and the exchange rate will be stable.

It should also be noted that Mongolia started receiving first of the funding of USD 700-800 million to be provided by international organizations and donor countries in 2020 to help overcome the difficult economic situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic.

-How will the the repayment of foreign debts be financed in the coming years?

-As of the first quarter of 2020, Mongolia’s foreign debts amounted to USD 19.8 billion or around 143 percent of Gross Domestic Product of 2019, excluding the amount of direct investment between companies. This debt was comprised of 36.5 percent of Government debts, 10 percent of the Central bank’s debts and 53.5 percent of private entities’ debts.

As I mentioned before, the Bank of Mongolia and the People’s Bank of China have agreed to extend their local currency swap agreement by three years. As the central banks of the countries are implementing a soft monetary policy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, interest rate has been showing a stable fall at global market with decreasing financial costs and expenses.

In addition, international rating agencies, such as Fitch and Standard & Poor’s have affirmed Mongolia's credit rating to remain unchanged at 'B' with a stable outlook by taking into consideration of external and internal situations of Mongolia’s economy. To conclude, it considered fully possible to reduce the amount of foreign debts as well as to re-finance with the least possible pressure on the economy.

-Thank you for your time.

Chinese Tesla competitor brushes aside rising Washington-Beijing tensions, files for US IPO www.rt.com

Hyundai Motor shares rise as much as 10% on Ioniq EV plan www.reuters.com

Russia on track to become world’s top gold producer by 2029 – report www.mining.com

Despite some disruptions caused by the covid-19 pandemic, Russia is expected to surpass China as the world’s top gold producer by 2029, achieving average annual growth of 3.7% y-o-y between 2020 and 2029.

Trump WeChat ban 'an unwelcome signal' for Chinese community www.bbc.com

For the global Chinese community, WeChat is more than a chat app: it is often the primary means of staying in touch with friends and family back home.

So the decision last week by US President Donald Trump to order American firms to stop doing business with WeChat has sent shockwaves rippling out.

"WeChat has become the 'it' tool for Chinese-speaking people, no matter where you are around the world," one Shanghai resident told the BBC.

The billion-user app is primarily a social networking platform but can be used for a host of daily activities like shopping, gaming and even dating.

But WeChat has a less innocent side. It is seen a key instrument of China's internal surveillance apparatus.

In an executive order, President Trump labelled WeChat a threat to US national security and accused it of gathering "vast swaths" of user data, threatening Americans' personal and proprietary information.

WeChat's owner, TenCent, has been ordered to sell the app by mid-September or face a ban on US operations.

The move to block WeChat, a prominent example of China's tech innovation, is seen by many Chinese as an attack on their culture, its people and state. In response to President Trump, China's foreign ministry has accused America of using national security as a cover to exert hegemony.

The Chinese diaspora in the US has been shocked by the move, and many people are worried - not just about keeping in touch with loved ones, but what this means for China-US relations.

'An unwelcome signal'
Jennie, 21, is a student at the University of California, and learned about the order while browsing WeChat.

"At first I didn't believe that it is true," she told the BBC. "Then I just felt very angry."

Jennie spends around four hours a day on WeChat, using it to contact people in the US and China. It is also a vital source of information and she spends a lot of time reading articles published on the public accounts of Chinese media, content creators and businesses.

Is the US about to split the internet?
On the anniversary day of Tiananmen Massacre, Jennie made a one-sentence post of commemoration. It was quickly removed, and her entire public account vanished.

She told the BBC she is "very worried" that WeChat will share her information with the Chinese government, but strongly opposes America blocking the app.

"It'd be similar to what China does - to censor," said Jennie.

Shan used to publish on her own public account, until it was censored by WeChat two years ago.

She believes that there should be alternative to manage threats posed by WeChat, other than banning it altogether.

"I wanted to study in the US because of its openness, but this move has burst my bubble."

"I used to think America is culturally inclusive," says Miley Song, a Chinese immigrant in California. Washington's move sends "an unwelcome signal" to Chinese immigrants in the country, she believes.

The 30-year-old stay-at-home mum often uses the app to connect with her parents in China, who were in a panic after hearing about Mr Trump's executive order.

But Ms Song says she is cautiously optimistic. "The ban seems very vague, I think it may be difficult to ban WeChat entirely," she says, "We'll wait and see."

While not particularly worried about the ban, she is concerned about it means for her future in the America.

In the midst of a pandemic, and with presidential elections on the way, Ms Song thinks the Trump administration is trying to divert attention away from rising death tolls and falling polling numbers.

"Otherwise, why has Trump focused on cracking down Chinese apps now?"

'It's fully embedded into people's lives'
There is also concern among those who have returned to China after living and studying in America.

Rachel spent 10 years in the US, many of them as a student in the capital, Washington, DC.

Now home in Shanghai, WeChat has become "fully embedded into people's daily lives," she told the BBC.

"If you live in China, you cannot go anywhere without two major apps: one is WeChat, the other is AliPay," said Rachel. "If you want to buy a bottle of milk, you open you WeChat Pay or AliPay to scan the QR code and pay, and most stores don't accept cash."

WeChat is also being used as a tracking tool to help the government with containing the spread of coronavirus.

While President Trump's order will have little impact on her daily activities in China, Rachel said it may become harder to connect with people in the US. As a result, she said some are exploring alternatives like communication app Line, or VPNs - virtual private networks which mask your computers location.

It's sad that it's going down this way," said Rachel. "I see both sides, there is always good and bad in both societies, and I want to be neutral but it's harder and harder to become neutral."

Mongolia reports 3 more COVID-19 recoveries, no new cases www.xinhuanet.com

Mongolia has reported three more COVID-19 recoveries, bringing the total recoveries to 263, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Sunday.