Under the current law, if a foreign citizen undertakes espionage in Mongolia, they will be punished by 12-20 years imprisonment.

A census conducted between Dec. 7-17 showed the number of livestock animals in 2018 increased by 244,700, or 0.4 percent, from the previous year, Erdene-Ochir Myagmarkhand announced at a press conference.

According to the preliminary result of the nationwide census, sheep accounted for 46.0 percent of all livestock, goats accounted for 40.8 percent, cattle accounted for 6.6 percent, horses accounted for 5.9 percent and camels accounted for 0.7 percent.

Among the country's 21 provinces, the northernmost Khuvsgul has the largest number of livestock with 5.7 million, followed by Uvurkhangai and Arkhangai in the central provinces, with about 5.5 million respectively.

There are 230,800 herder households with livestock animals, up 0.8 percent from last year.

The promotion of animal husbandry is seen as the most reachable solution to diversify the landlocked country's mining-dependent economy. Currently, mineral products account for over 90 percent of its total exports.

Organisers estimated nearly 25,000 people turned out for the protest on Thursday.

Local media described the gathering as the second largest after a riot in 2008.

Protesters focused their anger on Mongolia's parliamentary speaker, Enkhbold Miyegombo, and the two main ruling parties, the Mongolian People's Party and the Democratic Party.

There has been rising anger over a long-running corruption case related to allegations that Enkhbold and other political figures had looked to raise 60 billion tugriks ($23m) by selling off government positions.

Enkhbold has denied the allegations.

A cross-party group of politicians who are boycotting the parliament's plenary sessions has signed a letter demanding Enkhbold's resignation.

The group, the Mongolian People's Union, opposes the two main parties, together known by the abbreviation MANAN.

"We will not allow the situation where the MANAN faction gets all the wealth and resources, while people ... remain with nothing," member of parliament Ayursaikhan Tumurbaatar told media.

"The air pollution, people's poverty, wealth inequality all started with Enkhbold since he was the mayor of Ulaanbaatar city," he said.

Mongolia, for years a satellite of the Soviet Union, transitioned to parliamentary democracy in 1990.

At the Thursday protest, people held up placards with messages such as "We Demand Enkhbold Resign."

Protester Dejid Avirmed, 61, told the Reuters news agency that people were fed up that in a mineral-rich, democratic country like Mongolia many still lived in poverty.

"Mongolians are very patient, but now we lose our patience," she told Reuters at the protest in the central square in front of parliament.

"Enkhbold should resign. A shame on him that he makes this many people protest in this mid-winter cold."

Thursday's regular session of parliament was delayed for a seventh time because of the boycott by the members demanding Enkhbold's resignation.

The last scheduled parliament session for 2018 is due on Friday.

"Parliament members should solve the problem not by appealing to protests, but by coming to the parliament session hall. This is the law," said Enkh-Amgalan Luvsantseren, deputy speaker of parliament.

Munkhchimeg Davaasharav

As of the third quarter, foreign debt accounted for about 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to the central bank.

"We have many challenges ahead. In particular, the government is due to pay back 5.4 billion U.S. dollars in total in 2021-2022," said Bayartsaikhan Nadmid, president of the Bank of Mongolia.

"So, we need to pay special attention to increase foreign currency reserves," he said.

Mongolia's foreign currency reserves reached 3.4 billion dollars at the end of the third quarter, a new high since 2013, he added.

The mineral-rich country has a population of 3.2 million and an economy of 12 billion dollars.

The country's economy is heavily dependent on the mining industry that contributes to about a quarter of the country's GDP and around 90 percent of its exports.

The diplomat explained that gas supplies via a pipeline are much cheaper, but such projects can be launched only if a long-term bilateral deal is sealed. On the other hand, LNG is more convenient as the pipeline works only one way, but at the same time the fuel in the liquefied form is more expensive, according to Denisov.

China is world’s fifth largest consumer of natural gas and has long been planning to increase imports from foreign suppliers, including Russia.

Moscow and Beijing are currently finalizing talks on the gas supplies agreement via the so-called ‘Western Route’, which stipulates building the Power of Siberia pipeline to deliver Russian gas from the Far East to China.

The new pipeline will deliver 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for 30 years. The last remaining question the sides are discussing is the price, Denisov said.

“Many issues are agreed, as far as we know, except for the main one, perhaps, the issue of defining the price,” the envoy told journalists.

Russia currently has two LNG plants – Gazprom’s Sakhalin-2 and Novatek’s Yamal LNG. Energy giant Rosneft is also planning to build a new plant in partnership with US’ ExxonMobil, Japan’s SODECO and India’s ONGC Videsh. The $27 billion Yamal LNG project, which began operations last December, has recently reached full capacity and has already shipped two million tons of the liquefied fuel.

Activities to be implemented within the program will be reflected in the Basic Guideline to Develop Socio-Economy every year and required funding will be issued from state and local budgets and foreign loan and assistance. It plans to spend MNT166.3 billion on the program implementation for 2019-2023.

The funding will be spent on rendering support to build capacity of managers and professional association of intensive animal husbandry, transfer it into cluster system, import high productive livestock, naturalize, ensure food safety and introduce technology.

As a result of the program implementation, it is expected to increase the utilization of milk producing enterprises by 35 percent, the number of cattle to be bred by two-fold, output of milk and meat from one cattle by 20 percent and the volume of milk and meat to be processed industrially by 30 percent.

Moreover, it aims at zeroing the import of liquid milk and decreasing the import of dried milk by 30 percent and import of other milk products by 15 percent, alongside 90 percent and 70 percent decreases of egg and honey imports respectively. Furthermore, it is estimated to improve the fodder provision of intensive animal husbandry by 40 percent and modernization of techniques and technology by 30 percent.

Mr. B.Lkhagvajav, President and Chairman of the MNCCI, opened the ceremony and said: “Mongolia overcame economic crisis with the hard work of 157 thousand business entities which created over a million work places. As a result, growth at the macro-economic level grew by 6.3 percent.”

The top entities that immensely contributed to the Mongolian economy were selected in recognition of their annual business achievement, profits, social responsibility, employment, export and others.

This year’s Entrepreneur Grand Prix went to the Suu LLC, national producer of milk and milk products. Also, Mongol Bazalt LLC was awarded with ‘Golden Cup’ award of the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CACCI).

Regarding the SMEDF scandal, the IAAC confirmed that several high-profile officials have issued over MNT 100 billion through affiliated people and entities; however, due to the scale of these cases, the IAAC announced that they are unable to disclose the number of people involved as the investigation requires more time. The IAAC also informed that the agency has issued a request to suspend the rights of three Parliament members over the SMEDF scandal, which is currently under review by the Prosecutor, and refused to reveal the names of these MPs.

Moving on to the case involving the Development Bank of Mongolia, the IAAC noted that they have finished investigating around 20 relevant cases, which are now being settled at the court.

The IAAC authorities then commented on the bribery case involving special permission of Salkhit silver deposit, disclosing that an investigation is being conducted on USD 1.3 million worth potential bribery that entail high-profile Government official; thus, the people involved has been detained until further findings.

Since the last monthly meeting, the IAAC opened a new case on officials responsible for air pollution reduction actions, specifically the Clean Air Fund. Due to the fact that the case was recently opened, the IAAC officials refused to disclose any further and stated to give details at the next month’s meeting.

During the Parliamentary election of 2016, a voice recording of three high-profile officials of the Mongolian People’s Party went viral on social media. In the recordings, more than 8,000 jobs in Mongolia’s government and state-owned enterprises were being offered by the MPP. The IAAC initially dropped the case due to lack of evidence; however, the case was reopened after a new situation was emerged earlier this year. Yesterday, the IAAC announced that the General Intelligence Agency has confirmed the authenticity of the recordings; thus, investigation has begun on the implementation of the sell-off.

Additionally, the IAAC presented the results of corruption studies, in which the judiciary was ranked number one on corrupted institution list. The list is as follows:

1.Judiciary

2. Land Department

3. Medical institutions

4. Ministries and Government agencies

5. Education institutions.

Within the frame, Tavan Tolgoi thermal power plant with a capacity of 300 MW will be built and connected to the substation of Oyu Tolgoi project in two 220 kW power lines. Officials highlighted that the capacity can be increased in the future and the construction will start in March 2020 and finish by the end of June 2023. Tavan Tolgoi Power Plant LLC will be responsible for the necessary financing under its Investment Agreement.

On the other hand, Oyu Tolgoi LLC has agreed to draw electricity from domestic network as much as possible starting from next year.

Cabinet also approved the National Program on Supporting Intensive Animal Farming. Accordingly, the implementing activities will be added to the Government’s annual action plan and the required funding will be financed from State and local budget, as well as foreign loans and aids. The total cost of the program, which will be implemented in 2019-2023, is estimated at MNT 166.3 billion.

These will be spent on supporting intensive animal farmers, capacity building professional associations, transferring to cluster system, importing high-yield livestock and animals, ensuring food safety and introducing new technologies.

Later on, the Cabinet ratified the bill on health insurance. In 2019, the health insurance premium amount will be four percent of an individual’s monthly salary or an income equal to it. The amount will be divided in half between the employee and the employer.

New health premium to take effect in January
As for self-employed persons, herders, students and minors, the monthly premium will be MNT 3200, and MNT 6400 for foreigners, refugees and citizens whose only source of income is pension, members of a family in need of social welfare assistance, parents raising their children under the age of two (three for twins and triplets), military personnel and prisoners.

As of today, the average housing price stands at MNT 2.2 million per square meter in Ulaanbaatar, while the average purchasing power of households remains at MNT 1.2 million.

Tenkhleg Zuuch also expects housing demand to reach 33,102 in the next three years and supply to 38,514 households, creating 5,412 household housing surplus in the real estate market.

Housing price index fell by over 10 percent in 2015-2016 and slightly increased since the beginning of this year. The study also forecasted the average real estate prices to surge next year as the Government is planning to continue the eight percent mortgage program and to increase financial sources of the program.