Mongolia Looks at Boosting its Presence in Southeast Asia www.asian.travel

Wilderness and vast untouched landscapes, snow and a unique mode of living, this is how Mongolia wants to attract travellers from Southeast Asia and particularly Thais as Bangkok is the only city in ASEAN to benefit from a regular –although seasonal– air connection to Ulan Bataar, Mongolia’s capital.

For a long time, Mongolia remained like a white spot on the tourism map. But it has radically changed over the last decade. In 2000, the country registered only 137,000 international arrivals. A decade later, Mongolia already accommodated over 450,000 foreign visitors. And last year, it reached a new record with 638,000 foreign travellers, up by 6.4% over 2018. “We target a million tourists for 2020 but it is more like a task rather than a number to achieve. If we pass the 700,000 tourists’ mark, it would be a very good result, especially as we might be affected as well by the current virus epidemic from China,” explained Namsrai Tserenbat, Minister for Environment and Tourism at a press conference hosted in Bangkok.

Mongolia tourism still faces hurdles. Such as transport links that the Minister deems as insufficient due to the landlocked situation of the country. “They have been some improvements and we work hard to get more air connections. We would love to have the Bangkok-Ulan Bataar turning into a year-round flight. We are currently linked from the end of October to the end of March with two flights a week by our national carrier MIAT. We also need to find ways to lower the cost of domestic transportation,” said Namsrai Tserenbat. Flights are also available from Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tianjin in Asia.

Thailand is so far the largest market in Southeast Asia. “We receive some 6,000 tourists from Thailand. It is a far outcry from our two largest Asian markets, China with 209,000 travellers and South Korea with 103,000 travellers. However, we feel encouraged as the market progresses regularly. We also recorded last year good growth from Vietnam and Malaysia,” added the Minister. Over 61% of all international arrivals came last year from Asia and the Pacific.

To boost arrivals, authorities are working to the expansion of the new website Mongolia.travel, which was launched at ITB Berlin last year. The Ministry was inspired by the website set up for the Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office with its hashtag campaign #Mekongmoments. They consequently worked with the same company, Chameleons Strategies.

“Images were the core of the project as most visitors to Mongolia are first-time traveller. Mongolia.travel is divided into regions and themes but also let local trade to advertise their product on it,” told Jens Thraenhart, Executive Director of the MTCO who introduced Chameleon Strategies to the Minister. Mongolia.Travel will come as a mobile phone app. this coming March and that will be again unveiled at ITB Berlin.

A campaign has been launched under #FeelMongolia. When travellers to the country tag their picture with #FeelMongolia on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, they not only give others a glimpse into Mongolia’s wild beauty but they also enter a contest to win a trip back to one of the world’s most mysterious countries. ” Pictures speak more than anything else to describe Mongolia, a country of undescriptive beauty,” stressed Thraenhart.

Themes that the Ministry would like to emphasize in Asia are the vast unpopulated landscapes –tundra, lakes or mountains, the nomadic way of life of locals as well as culture and religion. “Snow is also important for our promotion in Southeast Asia as we can guarantee pristine snowy landscapes in winter,” added Namsrai Tserenbat.

Belarus and Mongolia to cooperate on freight train assembly plant www.railway-technology.com

The governments of Belarus and Mongolia have reached an agreement to construct a freight train assembly plant in Mongolia.

Mongolia-India to implement joint dairy development program www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Ch.Ulaan received Ambassador of India to Mongolia M.P.Singh on February 3.

A new unit at veterinary vaccine factory opens www.montsame.mn

A second unit of a virus vaccine factory named after State Prize Laureate veterinarian Kh.Tsodoi opened yesterday, February 4.

Mongolian Saiga antelope population reviving? www.news.mn

Recently, there has been great concern about the declining numbers of Mongolian Saiga antelopes. However, there is good news: the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has reported that the population of the animals reached 5074 in January 2020, representing an increase of more than 1000 within a year.

Coronavirus may cripple fuel demand in all of Asia www.rt.com

The coronavirus hasn’t just led to a slowdown in fuel demand in China, it’s also starting to impact the demand for transportation fuels in wider Asia.
Demand for jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel is likely to be suppressed in the coming weeks, potentially prompting Chinese and other Asian refiners to cut refinery rates, analysts say.

The slowdown in China’s fuel consumption is also aggravated by an extended period of public holidays for office workers and multinational corporations—including Google, Apple, McDonalds, and IKEA, to name a few—suspending operations or shutting down offices, stores, and restaurants.

The weaker fuel demand in China is spilling over onto weakening refining margins for processing crude oil into jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel. Therefore, refiners in China—and elsewhere in Asia—are likely to slow down refinery run rates amid depressed demand and an oversupply of fuels, sources who trade, supply, or refine crude oil across Asia told Bloomberg.

If refineries cut throughputs, a secondary victim of the virus outbreak could be crude oil demand in the world’s key oil demand growth driver, Asia.

“Fears of weaker demand have weighed on refinery margins, and continued weakness could see some refineries cut run-rates in China. If we were to see this, it would likely be the independent refiners who are first to cut, given their focus on the domestic market,” ING strategists said on Friday.

China has significantly boosted its fuel export quotas for 2020, but those quotas were handed only to large state-owned enterprises, not to small independent refiners.

The first hit comes to demand for refined products in China and across Asia, but a protracted health crisis with more travel restrictions could have a sizeable impact on China’s economic growth, which has already been weakening due to the US-China trade war.

Weaker growth could spill over to the crude oil demand growth of China—the world’s largest crude oil importer and the main engine of oil demand growth in recent years.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that the outbreak is now a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, but stopped short of advising travel or trade restrictions.

“The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available,” the WHO Emergency Committee said on Thursday, prompting a mini relief rally in oil prices early on Friday.

Yet, overall sentiment in the oil market was decisively bearish for a second consecutive week, despite a massive loss of crude oil supply from Libya.

Analysts are still struggling to quantify the impact of the virus outbreak on the Chinese economy and on oil and fuel demand, and the unknowns are unlikely to clear up over the next few weeks.

According to S&P Global Platts Analytics, oil demand could drop by 200,000 bpd over the next two to three months. This demand erosion would represent around 15 percent of the expected oil demand growth this year. But if the coronavirus turns out to be as deadly as the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was in 2003, then crude oil demand loss could be in the region of 700,000-800,000 bpd—more than 50 percent of the oil demand growth estimate for this year, S&P Global Platts Analytics says.

As per IHS Markit estimates, the potential maximum economic impact of the coronavirus on China’s economy—based on a benchmark using the SARS economic impact in 2003—could be a 1.1-percentage-point reduction in Chinese economic growth from the baseline IHS Markit forecast of 5.8 percent growth this year.

“Mainland China’s impact on the world economy is also much larger now than during the SARS outbreak, meaning the slowdown in Chinese growth may be a significant drag on global growth,” IHS Markit said this week.

Until clearer indications of the virus impact on oil demand emerge, the market will continue to be weighed down by fears of sizeable demand destruction.

“This thing still in the process of rearing its ugly head and that’s why oil is taking this so hard because this could really turn into an acute drop in demand at least for a time,” John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC, told Reuters.

'Vision - 2050', development policy document submitted to the Parliament www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On April 30, 2019, Prime Minister of Mongolia U.Khurelsukh issued an ordinance to establish a working group to evaluate the development stages of Mongolia in the past three decades and formulate an official document, determining the country’s long and midterm development policy.

The working group, headed by Chief of the Cabinet's Secretariat Ch.Oyun-Erdene, involving more than 1500 people, scholars and experts, secretaries of state of 13 government ministries, heads of some agencies, universities and civil society representatives worked on the document for eight months.

The completed “Vision – 2020” was presented to Prime Minster U.Khurelsukh on January 3, 2020 and the cabinet discussed and backed the draft document on January 26.

Today, January 31, Head of the working group Ch.Oyun-Erdene submitted the draft document to Parliament Speaker G.Zandanshatar for having it approved by the parliament.

The Parliament of Mongolia will discuss the draft “Vision - 2050” during its spring session of 2020.

The long term development policy of Mongolia titled “Vision - 2050” has 9 fundamental goals and 50 development targets, which are carefully divided into three groups of actions of 10 years for 2020-2030, 2031-2040, and 2041-2050. Following missions are identified to be achieved, focusing on the vision of “Mongolia becoming a leader with its economic growth and social development and a country that achieved sustainable preservation of its nature, language, territorial integrity and culture”.

1. Shared values of the nation – “Growing as a nation with a deep sense of national identity sharing common values”.

2. Human development - "Bringing Mongolia’s Human Development Index value to 0.9 and to be ranked in the top 10 countries of the World Happiness Index".

3. Life quality and middle class - "Increasing the population share of the middle-income groups sustained by favorable living conditions up to 80 percent by 2050”.

4. Economy - "Stepping over the threshold of developed countries by growing the GDP by 6.1 times and GDP per capita by 3.6 times to USD 15 thousand”.

5. Good governance - "Establishing a good governance with full respect for human rights and justice and zero tolerance for corruption".

6. Green growth - "Promoting environmental sustainability combined with green growth".

7. Peaceful and safe society -"Creating internal and external environment to protect the vital national interests”.

8. Regional development - "Developing in-country regions that have joined regional economic integrations and with sustainable structure of human settlement and competitive qualities".

9. Ulaanbaatar city and satellite cities - "Building people-centered cities with comfortable and environment-friendly living conditions".

Considering all this, emphasis of the long term development policy will be put on creating a nation with common principles and consciousness, improving the systems related to human development, health care, education, family, science, innovation and labor, and fostering middle class growth, engaging in reforms to the social protection and insurance systems, creating an efficient system of affordable housing provision, supporting startup businesses and promoting healthy and active lifestyle.

Owing to the fact that an adequate identification of key economic areas will help paving the way for further growth, creating healthy environment for economy; mining and agriculture driven by balance between extractive and processing industries, as well as manufacturing industry (Heavy and Light and Food industries), energy, transportation and logistics and tourism sectors and creative industry with knowledge-based approaches will be given higher positions.

Moreover, goals to ensure stability of governance, streamline to the distribution of power, and control, and organizational structures of government organizations, to develop e-governance and improve the professional capacity and expertise of civil servants and ethics, to strengthen the civil society-private-public partnership, to reinforce the rule of law and to build governance with no corruption are also incorporated.

The long term policy further encompasses reduction of urban bound migration and population density, implementation of economic policy across the country’s territory arranged into six economic regions, investment in the preservation of national culture, sustainable system of population settlement, inheritance of traditional and natural landscape with a balanced ecosystem achieved to future generations, economic diversification, development of green production and development of capital city Ulaanbaatar and satellite cities.

The full version of the ‘Vision – 2050’ long term policy development policy is made available online to receive comments and suggestions from the public for the document.

Copper price and coronavirus: “Black swan like no other” www.mining.com

The copper price declined again on Monday as markets in China, responsible for more than 50% of the world’s copper consumption, reopened to deep losses after an extended halt to trading due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Qatar, Mongolia hold first round of political consultations in Doha www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

The State of Qatar and the Republic of Mongolia have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to establish political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries.
The first round of political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar and the Republic of Mongolia was held yesterday in Doha.
The Qatari side was chaired by Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H E Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, while the Mongolian side was headed by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, H E Davaasuren Damdinsuren.
During the round of political consultations, the two sides reviewed bilateral relations between the two countries as well as issues of mutual interest.

Good news about the evacuated Mongolian students www.news.mn

Mongolian health officials confirmed that 31 students and a child evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan have tested negative of the coronavirus infection. Officials have isolated all those involved in the evacuation including 15 people from flight crew from the national flag carrier MIAT, engineers, technicians and other professional workers at the National Centre for Communicable Diseases (NCCD). They will remain isolated for 14 days, during which period the coronavirus symptoms will appear if the individual is infected.