The autumn session of the Parliament of Mongolia began work at the State Residence on October 2.

The opening was attended by President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations.

The session opened with the ceremony of hanging a portrait of Genghis Khan on the wall.

Then President of Mongolia Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, Chairman of the Parliament Zandanshatar Gombojav and Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai paid tribute to the portrait of Genghis Khan.

Opening the autumn session of the Parliament, Chairman Zandanshatar Gombojav made a speech.

Summary of this week's events on October 2-8, 2023 In Ulaanbaatar:

October 2: at 09:00, the World Bank's "Economic Review of East Asia and the Pacific" report will be presented to the press.

October 2: at 10:00 the regular fall Session of the Parliament will be opened.

October 2: From 11:00 to 17:30, the Human Rights Committee of the Democratic Party will organize the "Human Rights and Prisoner of Ideology" forum and photo exhibition in memory of the former public figure S. Zorig.

October 2: Trade and Investment Forum of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of People’s Republic of China will be held.

October 3-5: Mongolia Mining-2023 international mining and oil exhibition will be held.

On October 4: The regular meeting of the Cabinet will be held at the State House.

October 5: 22nd World Teachers' Day and 59th Mongolian Teachers' Day will be celebrated.

On October 5: "A Summer Flower" tragedy will be performed in honour of the 10th anniversary of "Emotsi" production at the Central Cultural Palace.

On October 6-7: "Open Khuvsgul -2023" activity will be held at Sukhbaatar Square in Ulaanbaatar.

On October 7-11: Asian Football Confederation Futsal Asia Cup qualifier group D matches will be held at the Buyant-Ukhaa Sports Palace.

Locally:

October 1-3: Judo Junior National Championship will be held in Uliastai, Zavkhan aimags.

On October 2: On the occasion of the Mongolian Teachers' Day Five sports competitions will be held in the city of Choibalsan, Dornod aimag.

On October 6: The first poetry festival "Aglagkhan Talaasaa" (From my dear steppe) named after famous poet Nyamsuren Danzan will be held in Choibalsan, Dornod aimag.

Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Member of the Parliament of UK Mr.James Heappay visited Mongolia yesterday /2023.09.28/ at the invitation of the Minister of Defense of Mongolia G.Saikhanbayar.

During his visit, we had an interview about the possibility of cooperation and development of the defense sector of the two countries, as well as the Russian-Ukrainian war.

"THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OUR TWO MILITARIES IS STRONGER THAN IT'S EVER BEEN"

- There is a Mongolian proverb “If someone arrived when it was raining, he is the lucky one”. Also, it seems like you brought London rain in Ulaanbaatar during your visit.

- I agree with that proverb. It's not much rainier than in Mongolia. Just another thing that the British and Mongolian people have in common is an unstinting belief that skin is waterproof.

What is the purpose of your visit In Mongolia?

To make friends. Five years ago, the UK decided that we were going to change our foreign policy and think more globally about the way that we do our business. We recognized that an ever-larger proportion of our trade would come from the Indo-Pacific region, if you've made that deduction then you start to see actually our security and prosperity are interlinked. So, we need partnerships in the region that are based on trade but are also based on security. And that's why I'm here to talk to the Mongolian government about how we bring that to life.

As we know, this year is the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between our two countries. How would you compare our defense relations of our countries compared to the past defense relations and the current time?

So compared to the past, the relationship between our two militaries is stronger than it's ever been. But that is more of a reflection of the fact that our militaries traditionally haven't had much of a relationship at all.

So, progress has been made in that there is now some relationship. The British Army was here on exercise Han Quest earlier this year. We have opportunities for Mongolian soldiers to train in British military academies. We are looking at how we develop our partnership in support of Mongolia's peacekeeping ambitions. So, we've gone from not very much at all to something, and that's to be celebrated. But the reason I'm here is I think we can do better than something and do quite a lot together. That's in our mutual interests and to our mutual advantage.

So, what is Britain's recent stance on the Russian and Ukrainian war?

So, we're clear that in February 2021 Ukraine was living peacefully within its own borders and its neighbor decided to mobilize 140,000 troops and invade and that's an outrage.

The UK started to donate lethal aid initially with anti-tank shoulder-launched weapons, and in doing that others were encouraged to donate similar systems, and then air defense, artillery, tanks, missiles, and then longer-range missiles, now there's an international coalition in the process of delivering fighter jets of that we're really proud of the role we've played in leading the international community through each of those capability thresholds and growing support for what Ukraine is asking for.

We're full of admiration for the way that the Ukrainian people have taken that international support and through their own courage and determination they've pushed the Russians back from the initial attack on Kyiv. They've pushed the Russians back in Kharkiv. They've held the Russian advance in the Donbass and denied the Russian army Bakhmut and now they are recovering their territory a meter at a time but every day they are moving forward and eventually, they will win I'm certain of that.

The reality is that Putin thinks that he can outweigh the West, that we will all get bored and give up. That won't happen. The UK and the rest of the countries in the world who donate in support of the Ukrainian cause are clear that we'll give whatever it takes for as long as it takes for this to end on President Zelensky's terms.

Meanwhile, Putin deceived the Russian people by telling them that this was a three-day special military operation. Well, over 600 days into his three-day operation, he still hasn't achieved anything that he set out to achieve.

Yet, across Russia, and probably in towns just over the border where they might be reading your reports, there are already graves of Russian soldiers who have died in this illegal war that is entirely an exercise in Putin's vanity. The Ukrainians won't give up. Their donors won't give up. The way to stop further loss of Russian life is for Putin to leave Ukraine.

As you know Mongolia and Russia have a very brotherly and historic relationship and as a neighboring country current war is affecting us economically. I would like to hear your opinion about this.

I believe in a nation's sovereignty and a nation's freedom to choose who its friends are, and what alliances it keeps and it would be hypocritical to argue so passionately for Ukraine and then to not make the same point to you. It's Mongolia's business who your friends are and whether you are friends with the Russians, that doesn't matter, because I think that you are a democracy, you value freedom, you value your sovereignty. You want to be our friend, that’s every reason for me to come and seek to develop and strengthen our friendship.

We as freedom-loving democracies believe that is my right or your right, it is everybody's right to seek whatever relationships internationally they want. But what we saw in Ukraine was Russia somehow thought it had a right to tell Ukraine who its friends could be, and what clubs it could join and so my challenge would be you've heard from me that I think Mongolia should pursue whatever relationships it wishes, but we should be really wary if at any point Russia tries to tell you what relationships you should maintain because that's an erosion of your freedom and sovereignty as a nation.

"WE ARE LIVING IN AN AGE WHERE WE ARE RETURNING TO GREAT POWER COMPETITION"

There has been talk in recent years that there will be a new Cold War happening soon. In your opinion, do you think that could happen?

Not between the West and Russia. No. I think that we have to be really clear that our support for Ukraine is about making sure that Putin fails in Ukraine. There's no desire to weaken Russia or to meddle in Russia's internal affairs. If Putin had never invaded Ukraine, the West would not have mobilized to support the Ukrainians in the way that we have. So I don't see any Cold War emerging there. But I do think that we are living in an age where we are returning to great power competition. I don't think that is necessarily confrontation. In fact, the UK is very careful to say that it's a challenging competition, but it is also a perfectly understandable evolution given how China's economy and prominence on the global stage is growing. But it is, I think, inescapably the case that the US and China are in quite fierce competition. And I think for the rest of us, we're working out how we navigate the opportunity of working with China and allowing China to take its place as a global power, whilst also making sure that we challenge China when they seek to undermine the rules-based order that we all believe in there was a lot in that.

Most of the big international organizations talk about the importance of the world-based international system and world-based governance, but also recently in the regions, other countries, the neighboring countries, want to create their own associations, and how it is going to affect international relations?

So, I think we're sort of in an age of mini-lateralism, everybody wants to establish a group that has a membership that is aligned around a certain issue and they feel that helps them advance their cause either in trade or security or diplomacy. I don't think that's a bad thing. In fact, I think it probably makes our international structures more resilient.

There is an important distinction. The aim of those countries in establishing those mini-lateral groupings is that they support a rules-based international order enshrined in the Charter of the UN, where countries are doing it with a view to undermining the rules-based order that has kept the world broadly safe and prosperous for the last 70 years. I think that we in the UK and many of our friends around the world have a real problem with that because when countries do that, they're not doing that to advance the cause of the international system and to try to make a world that is fairer and safer. They're invariably doing it nakedly in their own national self-interest.

After the Brexit happened what were the advantages or disadvantages? Were there unprecedented results of the Brexit? How do you see that?

Well, the consequence of a referendum, a vote in the UK was that a majority of people decided that they wanted to leave the European Union. And in a democracy, if you ask the public a question, you have to respect the answer that they give you. I think that no matter what part of the debate that people took, it was hotly contested. We made the decision and that has allowed the UK to think about our foreign policy far more broadly than our relationship within the EU.

And as somebody who now has the enormous pleasure of traveling around the world representing the UK interest, what's really interesting is that the whole world saw that as a moment when the UK would reappear and reemerge back into a more global set of relationships. So,I personally didn't vote for it, but I was very clear that if my constituents did, I would follow that. I've served in a government for the last five years that has made it their business to deliver on the will of the British people.

My personal reflection five years on is that the UK is winning new friends around the world. I think that is a fantastic thing and gives us enormous opportunities to trade more widely, to build security and defense partnerships more widely, to have stronger diplomatic relations in all regions of the world. People would say, you could have done all of that anyway, but whichever side of the debate you're on, the fact is, five years after Brexit, the UK, I think, is more influential and trading more widely than we did previously, and I think that's a good thing.

How do you see that Mongolian army and the peacekeeping mission can advance in the international level? How do you see they can develop and play at the international level?

Mongolia is already more than pulling its weight. For a country of your size, you are the 24th biggest contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions in the world and that's an amazing thing given that there are many more countries that are bigger than you.

So but the fact is that Mongolia wants to develop that even further, and wants to be an even bigger player in UN peacekeeping missions, that means that there's an opportunity for countries like the UK that want to work with Mongolia to develop that peacekeeping contribution. I think, one of the key takeaways from my visit this week, is that there is a real opportunity for the UK army and for the Mongolian army to work together to develop your peacekeeping capabilities and to see you even more engaged in UN missions around the world.

Thank you for your time.

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There is a saying that when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. But what happens when China is unwell?

The world's second-largest economy, home to more than 1.4 billion people, is facing a host of problems - including slow growth, high youth unemployment and a property market in disarray.

Now the chairman of the country's heavily indebted real estate developer, Evergrande, has been placed under police surveillance and the company's shares have been suspended on the stock market.

While these issues add up to a major headache for Beijing, how much does it matter to the rest of the world?

Analysts believe worries of an impending global catastrophe are overstated. But multinational corporations, their workers and even people with no direct links to China are likely to feel at least some of the effects. Ultimately, it depends on who you are.

Winners and losers

"If Chinese people start cutting back on eating out for lunch, for example, does that affect the global economy?" asked Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre in Singapore.

"The answer is not as much as you might imagine, but it certainly does hit firms who directly rely on domestic Chinese consumption."

Is China's economy a 'ticking time bomb'?

Hundreds of big global companies such as Apple, Volkswagen and Burberry get a lot of their revenue from China's vast consumer market and will be hit by households spending less. The knock-on effects will then be felt by the thousands of suppliers and workers around the world who rely on these companies.

When you consider that China is responsible for more than a third of the growth seen in the world, any kind of deceleration will be felt beyond its borders.

The US credit rating agency Fitch said last month that China's slowdown was "casting a shadow over global growth prospects" and downgraded its forecast for the entire world in 2024.

However, according to some economists, the idea that China is the engine of global prosperity has been exaggerated.

"Mathematically, yes, China accounts for around 40% of global growth," says George Magnus, an economist at the University of Oxford's China Centre.

"But who is that growth benefitting? China runs a huge trade surplus. It exports so much more than it imports, so how much China grows or doesn't grow is really more about China than it is about the rest of the world."

Nevertheless, China spending less on goods and services - or on housebuilding - means less demand for raw materials and commodities. In August, the country imported nearly 9% less compared to the same time last year - when it was still under zero-Covid restrictions.

"Big exporters such as Australia, Brazil and several countries in Africa will be hit hardest by this," says Roland Rajah, director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

Why falling prices in China raise concerns

Weak demand in China also means that prices there will stay low. From a Western consumer perspective, it would be a welcome way of curbing rising prices that does not involve further raising interest rates.

"This is good news for people and businesses struggling to deal with high inflation," Mr Rajah says. So in the short-term, ordinary consumers may benefit from China's slowdown. But there are longer term questions for people in the developing world.

Over the last 10 years, China is estimated to have invested more than a trillion dollars in huge infrastructure projects known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

More than 150 countries have received Chinese money and technology to build roads, airports, seaports and bridges. According to Mr Rajah, Chinese commitment to these projects may start to suffer if economic problems persist at home.

"Now Chinese firms and banks won't have the same financial largesse to splash around overseas," he says.

China in the world

While reduced Chinese investment abroad is a possibility, it is unclear how else China's domestic economic situation will affect its foreign policy.

A more vulnerable China, some argue, may seek to repair damaged relations with the US. American trade restrictions have partly contributed to a 25% drop in Chinese exports to the US in the first half of this year, while US Trade Secretary Gina Raimondo recently called the country "uninvestable" for some American firms.

But there is no evidence to suggest China's approach is softening. Beijing continues to retaliate with restrictions of its own, frequently blasts the "Cold War mentality" of western countries and appears to maintain good relations with authoritarian leaders of sanctioned regimes, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar Al-Assad.

At the same time, a stream of US and EU officials continue to travel to China every month to keep up talks on bilateral trade. The truth is that few people really know what lies between Chinese rhetoric and Chinese policy.

One of the more extreme readings of this uncertainty comes from hawkish observers in Washington, who say a downturn in the Chinese economy could impact how it deals with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own territory.

Speaking earlier this month, Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher - chair of the US House Select Committee on China - said problems at home were making China's leader Xi Jinping "less predictable" and could lead him to "do something very stupid" with regards to Taiwan.

The idea is that if, as Mr Rajah argues, it becomes apparent that China's "economic miracle is over", then the Communist Party's reaction "could prove very consequential indeed".

Can US and China set aside rivalry for climate action?

There are, however, plenty of people who dismiss this notion, including US President Joe Biden. When asked about this possibility, he said Mr Xi currently had his "hands full" dealing with the country's economic problems.

"I don't think it's going to cause China to invade Taiwan - matter of fact the opposite. China probably doesn't have the same capacity as it had before," Mr Biden said.

Expect the unexpected

However, if there is one lesson to learn from history, it is to expect the unexpected. As Ms Elms points out, few people before 2008 anticipated that subprime mortgages in Las Vegas would send shockwaves through the global economy.

The echoes of 2008 have got some analysts worried about what is known as "financial contagion". This includes the nightmare scenario of China's property crisis leading to a full-blown collapse in the Chinese economy, triggering financial meltdown around the world.

Dozens of freighters dock for loading and unloading at the Qingdao section of the Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, Sept 27, 2023.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

China's exports dropped for fourth month in a row in August

Parallels with the subprime mortgage crisis - which saw the collapse of Wall Street investment giant Lehman Brothers and a global recession - are certainly tempting to make. But, according to Mr Magnus, they are not completely accurate.

"This is not going to be a Lehman-type shock," he says. "China is unlikely to let their big banks go bust - and they have stronger balance sheets than the thousands of regional and community banks that went under in the US."

Ms Elms agrees: "China's property market is not linked to their financial infrastructure in the same way that American subprime mortgages were. Besides, China's financial system is not dominant enough for there to be a direct global impact like we saw from the United States in 2008."

"We are globally interconnected," she says. "When you have one of the large engines of growth not functioning it affects the rest of us, and it often affects the rest of us in ways that weren't anticipated."

"It doesn't mean I think we're headed for a repeat of 2008, but the point is that what sometimes appear to be local, domestic concerns can have an effect on us all. Even in ways that we wouldn't have imagined."

New Delhi: Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. (MEIL) has bagged a contract for $648 million in Mongolia. The order is for the third project under the Mongol Refinery, according to a statement from the Hyderabad-based engineering firm, for which it has received a letter of agreement (LoA) from Mongol Refinery State-Owned LLC.

This refinery project is a government-to-government (G2G) initiative. Upon completion, the refinery is expected to produce 1.5 million tonnes of crude oil annually, catering to Mongolia’s domestic demand for gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, and LPG.

On Friday, MEIL hydrocarbons president P. Rajesh Reddy, and Altantsetseg Dashdavaa, executive director representing the Mongol Refinery State Owned LLC, inked the new project in a contract signing ceremony at Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.

“For MEIL, which holds a prominent position in the global hydrocarbon sector, with a presence across upstream, midstream, and downstream operations and a track record of delivering onshore and offshore projects worldwide, the new venture marks the company’s third foray into the region," Reddy said.

MEIL’s first venture in Mongolia involves the construction of the country’s first greenfield Mongol Oil Refinery project. Within this refinery, MEIL is overseeing the construction of EPC-2, which encompasses open art units, utilities, offsites, and plant buildings valued at $598.90 million. Additionally, MEIL is constructing captive power plants for the EPC-3 phase, valued at $189.72 million.

The total value of the three projects now is $1.436 billion.

According to the MEIL statement, the new refinery will reduce Mongolia’s heavy reliance on Russian oil imports, enhance its energy security and reduce its vulnerability to fluctuations in international oil markets. In addition, it will generate employment opportunities, bolster the growth of nearby small industries, and contribute to Mongolia’s economic development in the future, it said.

In the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) deal of the $648 million project, MEIL will build diesel hydrotreater unit (DHDT), and a hydrocracker Unit (HCU), visbreaker unit (VBU), hydrogen generation unit (HGU), sulphur block, LPG treating unit, hydrogen compression and distribution – matching, plant buildings- satellite rack rooms and sub-stations, among others.

In addition, MEIL will also build utility and offsite facilities and other enabling facilities.

MEIL already has a global presence as it manufactures advanced oil drilling rigs globally. It has its presence in Belgium, Italy, Chile, Houston-USA, and now East Mongolia.

In the hydrocarbon sector, the company takes up designing, procuring, and constructing vital facilities such as separation units, crude distillation and desalting plants, gas dehydration facilities, gas compression installations, gas power generation setups, storage tank systems, hydrocarbon effluent treatment solutions, and both structural and process plant piping, among other critical components.

State-run EIL is the project management consultant for the Mongol refinery project.

In an interview to Mint in April, the ambassador of Mongolia to India, Dambajav Ganbold, had said that Mongolia’s first oil refinery, built and funded with Indian assistance, will be completed by 2025.

Mongolia experiences a unique disaster locally known as "dzud" (harsh winter conditions). During these events, large numbers of livestock perish due to starvation or direct cold exposure. This poses a significant threat to the livelihoods of nomadic herder communities, constituting 25 to 30 percent of the Mongolian population according to the National Statistics Office.

Since the 1990s, Mongolia has witnessed an increase in dzud occurrences, attributed to climate change, poor pasture management, and policy issues (Disaster White Book, 2021). The Mongolian government has taken substantial steps to mitigate the impacts of dzud, including the implementation of livestock laws and the production of dzud risk maps. The Dzud risk map, published by the National Agency for Monitoring and Environmental Monitoring (NAMEM) annually between October and December, categorizes dzud risk into five levels based on parameters like snow cover, density, air temperature, and vegetation.

In the first half of 2023, high temperatures and low precipitation led to severe drought in Mongolia during the

summer, resulting in insufficient grass for livestock to accumulate fat reserves for winter survival. Humanitarian Response: The Dzud risk map released in December 2022 revealed concerning risk levels across Mongolia. it indicated that 16 per cent of the Mongolian territory was at the highest level of dzud risk, 43 per cent at a high level of risk, 33 per cent at a moderate risk, and 10 per cent at a low and the least level of risk. The meteorology office had reported anomalous low temperatures in late December. According to the MRCS National Disaster Response Team (NDRT) deployment mission report (26 November-3 December 2022), due to the drought and economic inflation, meat prices had significantly reduced, consequently decreasing the income of herders. The combination of drought, economic inflation, and severe winter conditions posed a threat to herder households' basic needs.

In response to the escalating crisis, MRCS initiated an Imminent IFRC-DREF operation (CHF 136,038) with IFRC support in December 2022, providing financial assistance and psychosocial support to 1,000 herder households in high-risk locations as early actions.

Intensification of the Crisis and Expanding Relief Efforts:

A severe cold wave struck in January, with temperatures plummeting to -50 degrees Celsius in Zavkhan province and Uvs province. In other provinces, the air temperature was 3-4 degrees Celsius lower than the multi-year average. Snow coverage height was 37 cm in the central region and an average of 27 cm in the western region, preventing livestock from grazing. According to the task force staff at the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Light Industries (MoFALI), the crisis affected 29,346 herder households, or 115,956 individuals.

Considering the worsening situation, MRCS requested additional funding (CHF 467,834) and approval to scale up and extend (three months) the Imminent IFRC-DREF operation. The request was granted in March 2023, enabling MRCS to support herder households severely impacted by the dzud.

Beneficiary Targeting and Geographic Reach:

MRCS employed a two-stage criteria approach for beneficiary selection, prioritizing households with 200 to 400 livestock in the first stage and those meeting specific vulnerability criteria, such as households with disabled members or pregnant women, in the second stage. This approach identified 11,660 people from 2,934 herder households as vulnerable by the soum authorities based on their social status and subsistence level threshold.

These households had not received assistance from any international or local organizations and were located in Arkhangai, Bayan-Ulgii, Bayankhongor, Dornogovi, Dundgovi, Govi-Altai, Govisumber, Khovd, Umnugovi, Uvurkhangai, Sukhbaatar, Tuv, Uvs, Zavkhan, Dornod, Khentii provinces, and Baganuur, Bagakhangai districts in Ulaanbaatar. In this top-up phase, MRCS provided assistance to an additional 2,000 herder households severely affected by the dzud crisis. This assistance included unconditional and unrestricted cash assistance, the distribution of animal care kits, and the provision of psychosocial support.

In this expanded phase of relief efforts, MRCS provided assistance to affected herder households in 20 provinces and 2 districts within the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, extending its reach beyond the initial 13 provinces.