As of July, the total foreign exchange reserves reached USD 3.8 billion. It increased by 12% from the beginning of the year and by 33% from a year ago.

However foreign exchange reserves increased, MNT has weakened against the USD and is equal to MNT 3473. 1 USD was equal to MNT 3440 in July.

The Bank of Mongolia is in charge of ensuring the ability and reliability of foreign exchange reserves that it owns and manages. The state reserves of foreign exchange in the Bank of Mongolia consist of the following types of assets:

Gold stored in foreign banks and financial institutions,

Convertible foreign exchange in cash and non-cash form,

Promissory notes held in freely convertible foreign currencies,

All types of securities denominated in freely convertible foreign currency issued or certified by foreign governments, central banks, and international financial institutions,

Other assets considered as foreign exchange reserves internationally.

The number of flights between Russia and Mongolia will increase to seven per week with the possibility of connection flights to China and Europe, the Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport (Rosaviatsia) said.

"The parties agreed to set the frequency of flights by designated air carriers on each route at seven flights per week. Restrictions on the capacity of the aircraft types that are used will be lifted for the parties' airlines," the document, which was published on the agency's website, says.

Under the agreement, Russian airlines will be able to fly to Ulaanbaatar, Choibalsan, Ulgiy, and Ulaangom, while Mongolian airlines will be able to fly to Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Chita, Ulan-Ude, Novosibirsk, and Kyzyl.

The destinations in other countries which the air carriers can fly to are also indicated. For Russian air carriers, these are flights to Seoul and Beijing, and for Mongolian air carriers to Istanbul, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, London, Prague, and Munich. The flights require approval from the aviation authorities of other countries.

New Delhi: An EIL delegation met with the Honorable Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia, Mr Khurelbaatar Chimed, the Honorable Deputy Speaker of State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia, Mr Munkhbaatar Lkhagva and the Honorable Chairman of Citizens’ Representative Khural of Dornogobi Province, Mr B. Ganzorig in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to discuss the implementation of the 1.5 MMTPA Crude Oil Refinery in Mongolia, being executed by EIL as PMC under G2G collaboration through Line of Credit (LOC).

The EIL delegation was led by Ms Vartika Shukla, C&MD, Senior officials from EIL along with H.E. Mr M.P. Singh, Indian Ambassador to Mongolia and Dr Altantsetseg, CEO - Mongol Refinery State Owned LLC.

The Robot Challenge World 2023 competition was held in Beijing, China, on August 11-13, 2023.

3,000 participants from 24 countries, more than 1,600 robots competed for 12 sets of medals, 600 judges, and 220 organizations cooperated in the competition. Mongolian team with 45 members led by captain Batzaya took part in the opening.

14 students from Mongol Temuulel School with teachers B.Ariunbolor and G.Shine-Od, 4 students from Shine Erin School with teacher G.Iderjargal participated in 7 categories. Teacher G.Shine-Od, who took part in the mega sumo-adult category, took second place on the first day and won a silver medal.

On the 3rd day of the competition, Mongolian 2 student teams participated in the Robot rugby-senior category and won gold and bronze medals, and the name of Mongol Temuulel School was highly valued on the international stage. The Shine Erin School team took 5th place out of 25 teams and participated successfully.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia B. Battsetseg received young diplomats of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China yesterday.

The Minister B. Battsetseg underscored the active development of all-embracing cooperation based on the comprehensive strategic partnership between Mongolia and China, highly appreciated the contribution of the diplomats of the two countries to the further expansion of good neighborly relations, and pointed out that young diplomats play an important role in developing this cooperation in a new era.

As part of the cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, young Chinese diplomats are visiting Mongolia on August 21-24 and will get acquainted with the development of the capital city of Ulaanbaatar and the countryside, Mongolian history, culture and lifestyle.

The production of the industrial sector in Mongolia reached MNT 15.6 trillion in seven months, increasing by MNT 5.4 trillion or 53.2 percent compared to last year.

This was due to the increase of the mining production by MNT 4.3 trillion or 64.8 percent and the processing industry by MNT 825.7 billion or 32percent, according to the National Statistics Office.

The preliminary estimates indicate that sales of the products of the industrial sector in the first seven months of 2023 reached MNT 25.1 trillion, increasing by 75.5 percent. This was due to the increase in the sales of the mining and extraction industry by MNT 9.3 trillion or 92.5 percent and the sales of the processing industry by 36.8 percent .

Growth of the sales of the mining and extraction industries by 92.5 percent compared to the previous year was mainly due to the increase of sales of the coal mining sector by 3.8 times, metal ore mining by MNT 624.5 billion, and oil mining by MNT 555.5 billion.

An operation has been carried out in Lake Khuvsgul to locate and remove sunken vehicles since this June at the initiative of President of Mongolia. The operation aims to protect the local ecological system by cleaning the bottom of the lake from hazardous waste and reducing its pollution.

During his visit, a 17.8-ton tank car of the Zil-130 model was removed from the lake, which sank in 1981 at a depth of 74 meters.

The vehicles that have been recovered since this June include a Zil-130 fuel truck with a trailer that sank in 1995 at a depth of 128 meters, about 2.5 kilometers from the Maraan Bay of Lake Khuvsgul, and a 6-ton fuel trail at a depth of 54 meters, about 1.4 kilometers from the shore of Lake Khuvsgul.

In total, 34.7 tons of fuel and lubricants were removed from vehicles, which is a significant contribution to reducing pollution of Khuvsgul Lake and the environment.

Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Mongolia, which is home to fewer than 1,500 Catholics, has elicited curiosity among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

This will be the pope’s 43rd trip abroad since his election on March 13, 2013: He has visited 12 countries in the Americas, 11 in Asia and 10 in Africa.

What do these visits tell us about this pope’s mission and focus?

As a scholar of Roman Catholicism, I have studied Catholicism’s appeal for immigrants and refugees, and I argue that the pontiff’s official travels since 2013 are part of his decadelong effort to rebrand the Roman Catholic Church as a religious institution that centers the poor.

Prioritizing the poor

While previous popes have included the poor in their speeches, what has distinguished this pope is that he has focused on the Global South and prioritized immigrants, refugees and the less privileged, from Bolivia to Myanmar to Mongolia.

At his July 2013 visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa to commemorate migrants who had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, Francis gave a blistering critique of the world’s failure to care for the poor: “In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference. We have become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business!”

Three years later, the pope flew 12 Syrian Muslim refugees from a Greek refugee camp to Rome. Francis is the first pope to relocate refugees and to work with groups like The Community of St. Egidio charity in Rome that have successfully resettled thousands of refugees.

During my own interviews with Central American Catholic immigrants and refugees in central and eastern Iowa between 2013-2020 for my book, “Meatpacking America,” I heard from women and men who fled violence and poverty in their home nations that they look up to this pope “because he cares about us,” as Fernando said. And Josefina told me back in 2017 that this pope is “the real deal” in terms of supporting immigrants and the poor.

Francis and liberation theology

His predecessors – Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict – specifically condemned liberation theology, a philosophy rooted in Catholic social teachings that calls for a preferential option for the poor and an embrace of Marxist ideology.

According to Austen Ivereigh prior to his becoming pope, Francis — then Jorge Mario Bergoglio – condemned liberation theology as well. He would say “that they were for the people but never with them,” wrote Ivereigh, in his biography of Pope Francis.

Since his election as pope, however, Francis has undertaken what I call “people-focused” liberationism. In one of his first official announcements in 2013, “Evangelii Gaudium,” or “The Joy of the Gospel,” the pope wrote about the essential inclusion of the poor in society, arguing that “without the preferential option for the poor, the proclamation of the Gospel, which is itself the prime form of charity, risks being misunderstood or submerged by the ocean of words which daily engulfs us in today’s society of mass communications.”

In other words, the Gospel’s message that all Christians proclaim doesn’t mean a whole lot if the poor are not central to the goal of personal as well as collective salvation.

Journeying to Mongolia

How does the pope’s upcoming visit to Mongolia factor into this decade-spanning trajectory of his people-focused liberation?

Christianity has been present in Mongolia since the seventh century. Nestorianism, an Eastern branch of Christianity named after the Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, who lived from 386 C.E. to 451 C.E., coexisted alongside an even older religious practice, shamanism, which emphasized the natural world and dates to the third century. Nestorians believe that Christ had two natures – one human and one divine.

While Mary was seen as important within Nestorian theology as Christ’s mother, she is not seen as divine. This is similar to Roman Catholic theology where Mary is deemed special because she is Christ’s mother and worthy of veneration.

According to historian Robert Merrihew Adams, the missionary activity of Nestorian Christians in central Asia from the seventh to the 13th centuries was “the most impressive Christian enterprise” of the Middle Ages because of its rapid spread and influence.

Adams argues that Nestorianism’s spread was in part because of its belief that Christ was a two-natured individual – one divine and one human. These two natures in one body meshed well with preexisting shamanic beliefs, as shamanism sees individuals as able to harness the supernatural.

In addition to this branch of Eastern Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism came to Mongolia in the 13th century, as did Islam. Today, Buddhism is the dominant religion of Mongolia, while Islam and Christianity remain very small percentages at 3% and 2.5%.

Pope Francis has made it clear throughout his tenure that interfaith dialogue is an essential remedy to division. During his visit he will preside over an interfaith gathering and the opening of a Catholic charity house.

A strategic visit

The past decade has brought rapid urbanization and growth in major cities such as the capital of Ulaanbaatar, along with high rates of unemployment and Covid-era economic downturn.

And yet, according to the World Bank, the economic forecast for Mongolia remains “promising” because of its rich natural resources, such as gold, copper, coal and other minerals.

However, extraction of Mongolia’s resources is occurring at a rapid pace – so much so that the country, according to the Harvard International Review, has been called “Minegolia.” The United States has made significant investment in Mongolia’s mining industry, and China is a major importer of Mongolian coal. Two rail lines connecting Mongolia to China were installed in January 2022 and a third is being built.

In the past, Francis has made strong comments against corruption and environmental degradation, and it would not be surprising if he addressed the challenges of the mining industry during his trip. During his trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2023, he critiqued the Global North that contributed to “the poison of greed” that has “smeared its diamonds with blood.” In 2018, the pope spent a few hours in Madre de Dios, an area in the Peruvian Amazon, where mining has led to large-scale environmental degradation.

The pope’s visit will be bold given the challenges before Mongolia and its geographic location between Russia and China. A peace delegation on behalf of Pope Francis for the war in Ukraine, led by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, that visted Russia this summer is likely to head to China in the coming months.

As Italian Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, a missionary in Mongolia for two decades, has emphasized, Pope Francis’s visit to this country with a tiny minority of Catholics will “manifest the attention that the (pope) has for every individual, every person who embarks in this journey of faith.”

This piece has been updated to correct the depiction of the Roman Catholic Church’s view on Mary’s divinity.

BY Kristy Nabhan-Warren, University of Iowa.

According to the preliminary estimates, the production of the industrial sector in the first seven months of 2023 reached MNT 15.6 trillion, increasing by MNT 5.4 trillion (53.2 percent) compared to the same period of the last year.

This was due to the increase of the mining production by MNT 4.3 trillion (64.8 percent) and the processing industry by MNT 825.7 billion (32 percent) respectively, reports the National Statistics Office (NSO).

In the first seven months of 2023, by preliminary estimates the total production of the mining and extraction industry reached MNT 11 trillion, making increase of MNT 4.3 trillion (64.8 percent) compared to the same period of the previous year. Growth of hard coal and lignite production by MNT 2.9 trillion (3.4 times), gross ores production by MNT 699 billion (13.5 percent), and oil production by MNT 597.3 billion (5.1 times) mostly affected this increase.

In the mining and extraction industry, the physical volume of copper concentrate, lignite, silver concentrate, hard coal, coal concentrate, oil, and fluoride concentrate increased from 26.1 percent to 9.8 times, while fluoride, zinc concentrate, unrefined gold, and iron ore production decreased by 7.1-48.2 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

In the manufacturing sector, the physical volume of production of the main products such as cathode copper, absolute alcohol, flour, liquid milk, cement, metal structure, and livestock meat increased from 0.8 percent to 2.7 times, whilst production of the main products such as cigarettes, water, soft drinks, juice, combed cashmere, vodka, coal briquettes, lime, and cashmere knitwear decreased by 1.8-41.5 percent.

The preliminary estimates indicate that sales of the products of the industrial sector in the first seven months of 2023 reached MNT 25.1 trillion, increasing by MNT 10.8 trillion (75.5 percent) compared to the same period of the previous year. This was due to the increase in the sales of the mining and extraction industry by MNT 9.3 trillion (92.5 percent) and the sales of the processing industry by MNT 1.2 trillion (36.8 percent).

Growth of the sales of the mining and extraction industries by MNT 9.3 trillion MNT (92.5 percent) compared to the same period of the previous year was mainly due to the increase of sales of the coal mining sector by MNT 8 trillion (3.8 times), metal ore mining by MNT 624.5 billion (8.9 percent), and oil mining by MNT 555.5 billion (4.4 times) respectively.

According to the NSO, MNT 17.1 trillion of the MNT 17.7 trillion sales on the foreign market in the first seven months are from the mining and extraction sector. Coal accounted for 58.5 percent of foreign sales of mining products, metal ore for 36.2 percent, oil extraction for 4.2 percent, and other mineral extraction for 1.1 percent.

The Mongol Derby, the world’s longest and toughest horse race, has been thundering across Mongolia’s steppe for ten days this month. In one of the closest ever races, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Massachusetts, Matthew Perella, took second place.

Based on the ancient horse messenger system used by Genghis Khan — in a country where the horse is king — at 1,000 kilometers, the Derby is the toughest test on the planet for equestrian endurance riders. Whilst horses are changed roughly every 35km, at checkpoints strung out throughout the country, riders must endure being in the saddle for up to 200km a day and face the challenges of riding over 28 different semi-wild horses. The riders must face the animals’ varying temperaments and bucking abilities, and the inevitable falls and mishaps that happen along the way while navigating through challenging terrain, including giant sand dunes and freezing mountain passes.

The thirteenth edition of the Mongol Derby kicked off on August 2 and looked set to be a firecracker from the off, with 42 riders from 11 different nations competing for the prestigious win.

Day one saw Spanish rider Xavier Ferrer riding at the front of the pack for most of the day, but he wasn’t in the lead as evening fell. Having had a reversal of fortune when he abruptly parted ways with his horse en route to HS3 (horse station 3), Xavier had to hitch a ride back to HS2. This left German rider Judith Jaeckle at the front of the race as night fell.

Over the next eight days, Judith was never far from the front of the race and showed true horsemanship skills by never having to redraw a horse (new to the race this year, every horse station was a ‘lotto’, meaning riders had to ride the horse they were given, rather than picking a horse themselves, testing their horsemanship all the more. You could, however, choose to ‘redraw’ a maximum of three times in the race if you didn’t like the look of the horse you were first given).

The real battle of the race would come on its final stretch, as Swedish rider Linda Hermann — who had been in a game of cat and mouse with Judith over the previous days — finally managed to overtake the German rider to take the lead. . . but only just, and it certainly wasn’t a two-horse race. Hot on the ladies’ tails was American Marine Matthew Perrella, whose navigation prowess and luck of the draw with some seriously fast racehorses, now put him in contention for the Mongol Derby win.

As it came down to the last two horse stations, Linda found herself deep in a bog. Luckily she and her horse were fine, but it was a very tense moment and a vet team was dispatched before her horse was cleared to continue. This slowed the Swedish rider down, and allowed Judith and Matt to both gain ground, riding on very fast horses. It was down to the wire, but Linda was able to make it to the final horse station, before the finish line. She cleared the vet check (these checks happen at every checkpoint to ensure all horses are OK and haven’t been ridden too hard), and remounted on a seriously fit racehorse while still in the lead. The win seemed hers, as long as her horse passed the final vet check at the finish line.

But Judith and Matt had other ideas and reached the final horse station almost within eyesight of Linda. They both changed horses swiftly. With Matt on one of the most feral and fastest horses on the course, he crossed the finish line shortly after Linda, with Judith a mere few minutes behind him.

With bated breath, everyone waited for Linda’s vet check to clear (a penalty would lead to her losing the win), but finally the news came that her horse’s heart rate was below the 56 beats per minute requirement and the win was hers. Matt and Judith cleared their vet checks shortly after crossing, with Matt claiming second place and Judith third.

Not only was the race an incredible success for all those involved, but it also helped raise a huge amount of money for charity. The Mongol Derby to date has raised over $1 million for charities, with each rider asked to raise funds for good causes. Among them was the race’s official charity partner, Steppe and Hoof, whose objective is to support the herders and their animals while working to save the unique traditions that are part of the Mongolian nomadic lifestyle as it comes under fire from climate change and urbanization.

Matthew Perella was also raising money for The Righteous Life Rescue Ranch, which he founded to help retired horses and death row dogs, as well as to provide equine therapy to veterans with PTSD, those with special needs, and anyone seeking inner peace and overall improved health.