1 MONGOLIA MARKS CENTENNIAL WITH A NEW COURSE FOR CHANGE WWW.EASTASIAFORUM.ORG PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      2 E-MART OPENS FIFTH STORE IN ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA, TARGETING K-FOOD CRAZE WWW.BIZ.CHOSUN.COM PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      3 JAPAN AND MONGOLIA FORGE HISTORIC DEFENSE PACT UNDER THIRD NEIGHBOR STRATEGY WWW.ARMYRECOGNITION.COM  PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      4 CENTRAL BANK LOWERS ECONOMIC GROWTH FORECAST TO 5.2% WWW.UBPOST.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      5 L. OYUN-ERDENE: EVERY CITIZEN WILL RECEIVE 350,000 MNT IN DIVIDENDS WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      6 THE BILL TO ELIMINATE THE QUOTA FOR FOREIGN WORKERS IN MONGOLIA HAS BEEN SUBMITTED WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      7 THE SECOND NATIONAL ONCOLOGY CENTER TO BE CONSTRUCTED IN ULAANBAATAR WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      8 GREEN BOND ISSUED FOR WASTE RECYCLING WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      9 BAGANUUR 50 MW BATTERY STORAGE POWER STATION SUPPLIES ENERGY TO CENTRAL SYSTEM WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      10 THE PENSION AMOUNT INCREASED BY SIX PERCENT WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      КОКС ХИМИЙН ҮЙЛДВЭРИЙН БҮТЭЭН БАЙГУУЛАЛТЫГ ИРЭХ ОНЫ ХОЁРДУГААР УЛИРАЛД ЭХЛҮҮЛНЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     "ЭРДЭНЭС ТАВАНТОЛГОЙ” ХК-ИЙН ХУВЬЦАА ЭЗЭМШИГЧ ИРГЭН БҮРД 135 МЯНГАН ТӨГРӨГ ӨНӨӨДӨР ОЛГОНО WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     ХУРИМТЛАЛЫН САНГИЙН ОРЛОГО 2040 ОНД 38 ИХ НАЯДАД ХҮРЭХ ТӨСӨӨЛӨЛ ГАРСАН WWW.NEWS.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ЭРДЭНЭС ОЮУ ТОЛГОЙ” ХХК-ИАС ХЭРЛЭН ТООНО ТӨСЛИЙГ ӨМНӨГОВЬ АЙМАГТ ТАНИЛЦУУЛЛАА WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     Л.ОЮУН-ЭРДЭНЭ: ХУРИМТЛАЛЫН САНГААС НЭГ ИРГЭНД 135 МЯНГАН ТӨГРӨГИЙН ХАДГАЛАМЖ ҮҮСЛЭЭ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ENTRÉE RESOURCES” 2 ЖИЛ ГАРУЙ ҮРГЭЛЖИЛСЭН АРБИТРЫН МАРГААНД ЯЛАЛТ БАЙГУУЛАВ WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ORANO MINING”-ИЙН ГЭРЭЭ БОЛОН ГАШУУНСУХАЙТ-ГАНЦМОД БООМТЫН ТӨСЛИЙН АСУУДЛААР ЗАСГИЙН ГАЗАР ХУРАЛДАЖ БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     АЖИЛЧДЫН САРЫН ГОЛЧ ЦАЛИН III УЛИРЛЫН БАЙДЛААР ₮2 САЯ ОРЧИМ БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19     PROGRESSIVE EQUITY RESEARCH: 2025 ОН “PETRO MATAD” КОМПАНИД ЭЭЛТЭЙ БАЙХААР БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19     2026 ОНЫГ ДУУСТАЛ ГАДААД АЖИЛТНЫ ТОО, ХУВЬ ХЭМЖЭЭГ ХЯЗГААРЛАХГҮЙ БАЙХ ХУУЛИЙН ТӨСӨЛ ӨРГӨН МЭДҮҮЛЭВ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19    

Events

Name organizer Where
MBCC “Doing Business with Mongolia seminar and Christmas Receptiom” Dec 10. 2024 London UK MBCCI London UK Goodman LLC

NEWS

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Naadam opening to be performed for foreign visitors www.zgm.mn

Naadam Festival 2019 will be held at the National Amusement Park at 21.00 pm for foreign visitors. The official opening ceremony of the Naadam Festival takes place at the National Sports Stadium in Mongolian. Therefore, foreign tourists cannot fully understand the meaning of content. This year, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism decided to re-organize the opening as Naadam Night show in English.

Also, there is a problem of lack of opening ceremony ticket. National Sports Stadium has only 12,300 seats and finding tickets is a big problem tourists face every year. A total of 15,000 tourists submitted a request to watch Mongolia’s traditional festival opening ceremony. However, around 1500 tickets were allowed to the tourists. This year, the standard ticket price is MNT 16,000-24,000 the same as the last year.

“The Stadium has 13,500 seats, and tourists can receive 3500 of it. This is our capability. If we allow all the tourists who want to attend the opening of the Naadam Festival to enter the Central Stadium, Mongolians cannot watch their traditional festivals. We are aiming to receive one million foreign tourists in 2020, making an effort to improve sanitation standards in tourism zones,” the Minister of Environment and Tourism Tseerenbat Namsrai said to the press.

In Mongolia, the tourism season starts in May, and travelers tend to attracted by Naadam Festival. There is statistical data on an average of 450,000 tourists visit Mongolia annually. However, according to the officials, the number of tourists visiting Mongolia only exceeds 90,000 per year.

Tourists came to Mongolia decreased by 4.8 percent last year
During Naadam, National Sports Stadium become extremely crowded, due to the centralized trade and trade services. “730 organizations, which include food, souvenirs, handicrafts, and other trading will work in the stadium and Khui Doloon Khudag. Under General Manager of Ulaanbaatar’s order related to Naadam, the Metropolitan Professional Inspection Department, Police Department of Ulaanbaatar city, and the Mayor’s office of all districts will jointly work in maintaining security,” said the spokesman.

The number of tourists came to Mongolia last year decreased by 4.8 percent. The decline in tourists from China and Australia was the key factor to it. Although the total number of tourists has dropped, tourists from Ukraine and Hong Kong have risen. In particular, the tourists from Ukraine increased by 37.2 percent compared to last year. Traveling flow between the two countries has doubled since the adoption of the non-visa law to Russia.

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Mongolia to establish Genghis Khan's museum www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia plans to establish the legendary conqueror Genghis Khan's museum, the country's Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Sports Yondonperenlei Baatarbileg said Wednesday.

"Today, the Mongolian government made a decision on establishing Genghis Khan's museum in the capital city Ulan Bator in the near future in a bid to boost tourism," Baatarbileg told a press conference.

The minister said the museum would be the main center of works of all scientific studies and rare findings related to Genghis Khan.

The Asian country has been striving to diversify its tourism sector to promote the growth of its mining-dependent economy.

In an effort to develop heritage tourism, the country has been paying special attention to Genghis Khan.

The government has recently decided to establish an independent institute for Genghis Khan research in the eastern Khentii Province which is best known as his birthplace.

Genghis Khan (1162-1227) founded the Mongol Empire in the 13th century by uniting individual tribes in Northeast Asia.

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UK technical and vocational education standard is to be implemented in Mongolia www.mongolianbusinessdatabase.com

Technical and Vocational Education and Training UK www.tvetuk.org, its Mongolian official partner Mongolian Business Database (MBD) and Global Academy for Professional Education (GAPE) in UB www.gape.education are signed an MoU to implement TVET UK's "Skills Network" global online certified or/and non-certified standard courses in Ulaanbaatar as "in-class" condition.

The parties will discuss the target demanding sectors in Mongolia and select the appropriate courses from 102 online training programmes first and plan to announce the in-class training courses. According to the initial consideration, the training on finance, accounting, bank and financial institutions staff training will be implemented first followed by hospitality and food service industry staff training courses would be considered. The project mission will be commenced this year.

MBD and GAPE hope to enhance human capacity improvements for Mongolian generation in near future with the UK standrad Skills Training and Education.

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Mongolia faces needs to boost budget revenue www.zgm.mn

Budget revenue of Mongolia is at risk due to tax deficit, deduction, and discounts for mining investors. Furthermore, the Extended Fund Facility program will expire in the coming year, threatening the budget decrease. As a result of the need, officials propose the possibility to increase budget revenue by setting up the right tax policy.
One out of every MNT 10 of Mongolia’s tax revenue goes to discounts and exemptions. In the last four years, tax deduction and exemptions to citizens and entities of Mongolia equal to nearly four trillion tugriks. The volume has increased, and exceeded one trillion tugriks this year. This number is expected to reach MNT 1.2 trillion next year, according to the 2019 budget. Currently, there are over 40 discounts and 180 exemptions nationwide.
 
As of 2018, there are 1.2 million working population in Mongolia
Taxes are the main source of Mongolia’s budget revenue, which accounts for 80 percent of it. However, the country can not fully obtain its tax. The tax deficit equals MNT 800 billion. As of 2018, there are 1.2 million people, who are working in Mongolia of which 650,000 are paying social insurance. The rest of the working people are receiving social and civil services without paying social insurance. This may lead the country to inequality of social allocation.
 
More specifically, government revenues are mainly generated from taxation and royalties from the mining industry, but the country provides benefits to direct mining investors by showing VAT and profit discounts. International organizations have also warned the need to organize such tax breaks. According to the World Bank, the detailed study of these preferences, goals, and economic feasibility is required.
 
In 2017, Mongolia received an extensive bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under its Extended Fund Facility (EFF). Since taking the IMF loan, Mongolia has had a good economic situation. When the three-year financial program expires in 2020, the revenue sources will decrease gradually and spell risk to the budget.
 
In order to expand budget revenue, Mongolia needs the policy which enables the government to identify unregistered and potential taxpayers and enhance accountability in tax administration. The experts also underscored the importance of simplifying tax payments, using electronic invoices, improving taxation and information strategies
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Swine fever: How is Asia coping with the outbreak? www.bbc.com

Countries across Asia are struggling to contain an outbreak of swine fever. It is threatening the livelihoods of millions of families that rely on pig farming.

The highly contagious and incurable virus is deadly to pigs but not dangerous to humans.

The disease originally spread from Africa to Europe and is now affecting several Asian countries, where pork features heavily in the diet.

It's raising particular concern in China which has half the world's pigs.

Reality Check looks at the measures being taken to contain the disease.

The virus can be spread by direct contact with infected pigs and wild boars, through infected animal feed and on clothing and farm equipment.

Outbreaks have been reported in China, North Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Vietnam and Cambodia where tens of millions of households are involved in pig farming.

The UN expects the disease to carry on spreading because many small farms lack the funds or expertise to protect their herds. There is no way of treating infected animals.

Millions of pigs are being culled in a desperate attempt to halt the disease, according to the latest UN figures.

1.1 million in China
2.6 million in Vietnam
3,115 in Mongolia
2,400 in Cambodia
China first to declare outbreak
China reported a swine fever outbreak in August 2018 and since then, the virus has spread to almost all parts of the country, says Martin Yip, of the BBC Chinese service.

Authorities moved to cull pigs and shut down live meat markets after confirmed outbreaks, as well as banning farmers from feeding their animals with human food leftovers. This is a common practice for small-scale domestic pig owners which risks spreading the disease.

China has been praised by Dr Monique Eloit, the head of World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), for its effort to combat swine fever.

However, some people suspect the scale of the outbreak has been under-reported.

Many people in China rely heavily on pork, and the economic consequences could be devastating for farmers.

Pork prices rose by 29.3% in the year to May, according to government figures, and could rise even higher.

Spread across Vietnam
In February 2019, Vietnam became the third Asian country, after China and Mongolia, to report the outbreak, says Quynh Le, of the BBC's Vietnamese service.

As of 17 June, the disease had spread to 58 out of 63 cities and provinces. The government warns that the outbreak poses the biggest challenge yet to the country's livestock industry.

In March, the prime minister banned the transportation, trade, slaughtering, and consumption of pig and pork products suspected of being smuggled into the country.

Famers have been promised compensation for culled pigs worth a minimum of 80% of the market price.

The outbreak has remained severe in spite of government efforts.

It is projected that pork production in Vietnam will fall by at least 10% this year.

Precautionary measures for South Korea
North Korea reported an outbreak of African swine fever to the World Organisation for Animal Health at the end of May, says Hyung Eun Kim of the BBC Korean service.

South Korea offered quarantine and medical assistance to the North, but officials say they've had no response.

However, North Korean state media has been warning people about the disease since the end of 2018, says Jo Chung Hee, a North Korean defector who used to work in the country's agriculture department.

South Korea is taking measures to prevent the disease from entering the country. These include a ban on using food waste to feed livestock.

The South Korean military has been authorised to kill any wild boars seen crossing the zone which separates North and South Korea.

It's unlikely that infected boars would be able to cross this heavily fortified and mined region. But the South Korean prime minister has visited the area several times to raise awareness of the disease.

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Mongolia bans exporting live livestock animals www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The Mongolian government on Wednesday banned exporting live livestock animals and pushed forward plans to improve its meat processing capacity, according to the government's press office.

"Previous governments' decisions on exporting live livestock animals have been overturned," the government's press office said in a statement. "Instead of it, Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh has ordered relevant officials to pay special attention to increasing the capacity of existing meat processing plants and building new ones in order to raise meat exports."

Animal husbandry is the backbone of the landlocked country's economy as nearly 40 percent of the country's nomad population depends on animal husbandry for their livelihood.

As one of the last nomadic countries in the world, the Asian country has more than 66.46 million livestock animals as of the end of 2018, according to the country's National Statistics Office.

Mongolian Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Chultem Ulaan said in May that the country earned around 190 million U.S. dollars from meat exports in 2018, with most of the revenue coming from its exports to China.

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Tech exodus: HP, Dell, Microsoft, and others to reportedly shift production out of China www.rt.com

Global technology companies are reportedly seeking to move substantial production capacity out of China due to the trade conflict with the United States.
Sources told the Nikkei Asian Review that major personal computer (PC) producers HP and Dell are planning to shift up to 30 percent of their notebook production out of China.

The move could be a major blow to the country’s position as the world’s powerhouse for tech gadgets.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Sony and Nintendo are also looking at reallocating some of their game console and smart speaker manufacturing out of the country, sources added. Other leading PC makers such as Lenovo Group, Acer and Asustek Computer are also considering a production shift, according to people familiar with the matter.

They told Nikkei that, despite the truce agreed by American and Chinese leaders at the G20 summit in Japan, the situation was still too uncertain. Rising costs in China were also prompting manufacturers to examine alternatives, sources said.

Manufacturers of key data center servers such as Quanta Computer, Foxconn Technology and Inventec have already moved some production to Taiwan, Mexico and the Czech Republic.

Last month, the media reported that Apple was exploring the cost implications of moving up to 30 percent of its smartphone production.

China is the world’s biggest producer of PCs and smartphones. Its imports and exports in the electronics segment have rocketed 136 times to $1.35 trillion in 2017 from just over $10 billion back in 1991, according to Chinese data provider QianZhan.

“There is no turning back, and it is not only about tariffs but also about reducing risks for the long term [such as rising labor costs],” Darson Chiu, an economist specialized in trade at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research told the Nikkei. “Southeast Asian countries and India will together become new competitive hubs in coming years for electronics production,” he said.

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Washington owes Mongolia an apology www.washingtonpost.com

OPINION: by Josh Rogin
You had to feel sorry for Mongolia this past week. Officials there must have been excited about the visit of national security adviser John Bolton, the first high-level U.S. official to travel there since then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry hailed the strategically crucial country nestled between China and Russia as an “oasis of democracy” in 2016. But in Washington this week, Mongolia was treated like the punch line of an anti-Bolton joke.

Virtually all the U.S. media coverage portrayed (unfairly) Bolton’s trip to Ulaanbaatar as nothing but a humiliating insult for him and a sure sign that President Trump had cast him to the darkness. Many commentators noted that the president brought Tucker Carlson to the Korean Peninsula for his photo-op with Kim Jong Un, another perceived snub to Bolton. When the National Security Council tried to explain that Bolton’s trip was scheduled a month ago and represented an important opportunity to bolster relations with a key ally, reporters laughed it off as an excuse.

When not taking cheap shots at Bolton, the media spent most of its time this past weekend taking Ivanka Trump to task (this time, fairly) for photobombing Group of 20 events, giving her own video readouts of the president’s bilateral meetings with world leaders and sneaking across the North Korean border with both her father and husband to say it was “surreal.” (Full disclosure: I once snuck across the border into North Korea for a photo, but I wasn’t a senior White House official.)

While Ivanka was playing at foreign policy, Bolton was conducting foreign policy. He met with the president, prime minister, the foreign minister, the defense minister, the Mongolian ambassador to Washington, the speaker of their parliament and other officials. Bolton was following the lead of his mentor, former secretry of state James Baker, who realized decades ago the importance of U.S. engagement in Mongolia.

Bolton was actually doing the thing Democrats and other Trump critics are always complaining this administration doesn’t do — namely, bolstering relationships with democratic allies we need onside to deal with the challenges of China and Russia. Here’s the country that’s literally in between them, but still calls the United States its “third neighbor.”

There is important business to be done in Mongolia. There is a trade relationship that Congress has been pushing to deepen. Mongolia is a NATO partner country, the same as Japan and South Korea. The Mongolians deployed troops in Iraq and have troops serving in Afghanistan together with U.S. forces now. It’s an open society struggling to maintain its sovereignty and identity while surrounded by the world’s two greatest authoritarian powers.

Bolton could have canceled last minute and joined the party at the demilitarized zone. That surely wouldn’t have prevented the rampant speculation that the Trump-Kim meeting signaled a defeat for Bolton’s drive to push a harder line vis-à-vis Pyongyang. But serious, honest analysts should give the Trump administration officials credit when they do something right. And here, the right move was for Bolton to honor his commitment and pay Mongolia’s leaders the basic respect they deserved.

That’s not to say he did everything right. On the way back, Bolton couldn’t resist tweeting about a New York Times story that claimed unnamed administration officials were considering a plan to accept a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear programs as an interim step toward denuclearization. Bolton’s call for “consequences” for the leakers overwhelmed his Mongolia message and fed the notion that he came down with a serious case of FOMO, or the fear of missing out.

All administrations are torn between the urgent and the important. But five years from now, it’s very likely that Trump’s handshake with Kim, like his entire North Korea diplomacy, will have amounted to little more than some great television moments. Mongolia’s importance to the United States will certainly be even greater than it is now. Bolton was investing in something substantial rather than attending something superficial.

Of course, the leaders of Mongolia just wanted to show the world that the U.S.-Mongolia relationship is strong. Instead, they became collateral damage and the butt of jokes because Bolton is an easy target and something else happened that day in another country that was deemed bigger news.

To our Mongolian friends, on behalf of those Americans who believe the U.S.-Mongolian partnership is worth showing up for, please accept our apologies.

 
 
 
 
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APAO Satellite Congress 2019 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia www.healio.com

Launched in 2018, the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology Satellite Congress is a new educational initiative that aims to provide ophthalmology education and science updates for APAO national members that have yet to organize an annual APAO Congress. Our Satellite Congress focusses on the specific needs and interests of the local ophthalmological community, with the aim of improving patient care in the country.

The 2nd APAO Satellite Congress will be held at Holiday Inn Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia on Aug. 9-10, in conjunction with the 29th annual conference of Mongolian Ophthalmologists’ Society (MOS).

Two subspecialty member societies of APAO, the Asia-Pacific Strabismus and Paediatric Ophthalmology Society and the Asia-Pacific Glaucoma Society, are organizing two scientific symposia, sharing the latest scientific innovations, treatments and surgical techniques in the fields of pediatric ophthalmology and glaucoma, respectively. We are grateful for their generous contributions.

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China expected to invest over $150b in 5G network through 2025: researcher www.chinadaily.com.cn

NEW YORK - China is expected to invest more than $150 billion in its 5G network through 2025, with 5G wireless systems accounting for three quarters of the mix, said a Wall Street expert on Monday.

"That's more than the country's 100 billion (dollars) investment in 4G from 2013 to 2018, an increase driven in large part by the higher number of 5G base stations and higher initial cost of 5G equipment," said Allen Chang, a researcher at Goldman Sachs, in a brief note.

China has officially approved 5G commercial services earlier in June, and is currently testing 5G across all major cities and provincial regions. The country's 5G market is expected to start small-scale commercial use this year and large-scale commercial use next year.

It's estimated that 28 percent of China's mobile connections will operate on 5G networks by 2025, taking up about a third of all 5G connections globally, according to a recent report by the Global System for Mobile Communications Alliance.

Chang further noted that China is expected to own 4.9 million 5G base stations by 2030, as "strong consumer demand for 5G's high speeds and fierce competition between brands to offer upgraded features" would lead to surging 5G smartphone shipments over the next few years.

In this aspect, his projection can be underpinned by a latest case in point.

Chinese telecommunications heavyweight Huawei announced last week that it had received 50 contracts on 5G commercial services from 30 countries and regions, and shipped more than 150,000 5G base stations worldwide.

The company's 5G base stations is expected to grow to about 500,000 by the end of this year, according to Hu Houkun, deputy chairman of the company's board of directors.

Chang also held that China's transition to faster wireless should "bring a wave of opportunities" for relevant tech companies and their stocks, driven by increased semiconductor demand and a surge in consumer device upgrades.

"Telecom operators, equipment makers, and devices makers (worldwide) will all likely boost their demand for semiconductor chips in the coming years as they look to upgrade their systems and technology for the 5G era," he said. "We are confident in the long-term growth outlook."

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