The daily volume of goods handled by Ganqmod Port, the largest highway port on the China-Mongolia border, has surpassed 170,000 tonnes so far this year, the port administration said Thursday.

This figure marks a record-high volume of daily goods handled by the port. In 2022, the port completed the customs clearance of over 19 million tonnes of goods, more than twice that of 2021.

As of Thursday, the port had already handled more than 15 million tonnes of goods, a year-on-year growth of over 200 percent, said the port administration, attributing this growth to the intelligent and streamlined customs clearance.

Situated in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ganqmod Port is a major energy import channel for the country and an important hub on the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor. It is also the region's first highway port to reach the 10-million-tonne mark in 2023, hitting the target nearly four months earlier than in 2022.

(Web editor: Zhao Tong, Liang Jun)

The Government submitted a draft law on amendments to the Budget Law of 2023 to Parliament and it was approved by Parliament on June 16. In this regard, at the regular Cabinet meeting, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection discussed the following eight issues related to increasing salaries and pensions and providing child support to each child and decided to implement them from July 1. It includes:

The salary coefficient for pension calculation was revised nine years after 2014, and the difference in pensions between pensioners who have worked in the same profession for the same number of years and paid contributions has become closer.

The amount of pension provided by the social insurance fund and received by military pensioners has been increased by 10 percent, the minimum amount of the full pension and military pension provided by the social insurance fund has been set at 550,000 MNT, and the minimum amount of the proportional pension provided by the social insurance fund has been set at 440,000 MNT.

The amount of the social welfare pension is set at 350,000 MNT and the care allowance at 275,000 MNT.

The “Procedure for Providing Child Allowance” was discussed and approved to provide child allowance to all children aged zero to 18 in Mongolia.

Salaries of civil servants will be increased by 26 to 50 percent.

In line with the revision of the salaries of public administration positions, the minimum salary for the position will be 1 million MNT, and the salaries of the governors and their deputies of the district capital, soum district, and regional centers will be increased.

The ranks of public professional services and general public services in the fields of science, health, education, culture, sports, and sports have been updated.

Relevant amendments have been made to the “Procedures for granting local government and service employees a bonus for working in the local area” and “Procedures for providing one-time grants for old-age retirement to government employees”.

ACCESS TO SCHOOLS INCREASED

The Government’s resolution on measures to reduce the load and increase access to secondary schools was approved.

According to the resolution, relevant ministers and leaders were instructed to take measures to solve the problem such as increasing the working process of general education school buildings that are being built with state and local budgets and foreign loan aid investments, increasing the number of school seats, using the school resources and free space to add classrooms, calculate the costs required for renting, purchasing, and repairing classrooms, furniture, equipment, learning materials, and school buses.

In this academic year, 746,405 students are studying in 859 secondary schools in Mongolia. Every year, 30,000 to 35,000 children graduate from elementary school, and 78,000 to 80,000 new children enroll. This disparity in enrollment and graduation will continue over the next five years and will increase to more than 50 percent in city schools. In the academic year, the number of daily students in elementary schools will increase by 38,615 compared to the previous academic year.

‘PUBLIC TRANSPORT TO STRICTLY USE FIRST LANE’

Minister and Chairman of the National Committee on Traffic Congestion J.Sukhbaatar presented to the Cabinet meeting about the implementation of projects and measures implemented in the context of reducing traffic congestion in Ulaanbaatar city.

The government will decide on 187 billion MNT, which is the funding required for land acquisition and expansion of the road network and it will have a significant impact on the reduction of traffic congestion in the capital city, as part of the goal of increasing the road network and connecting many branch roads and road structures, and the 2023 budget is reflected in the notes.

68 percent of the 996 buses that serve more than 500,000 citizens in 107 areas every day are more than 10 years old. In 2022, the fleet was renewed with 50 school children's buses and 224 high-capacity diesel buses for a total of 274 buses.

In 2023 and 2024, a total of 810 buses will be upgraded. As a result, the public transport bus fleet will be 100 percent renewed.

A round of political consultations between the ministries of foreign affairs of Qatar and Mongolia took place in the capital of Mongolia.

The Qatari side was led by Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ahmad Hassen Al-Hammadi, and the Mongolian side was led by State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ankhbayar Nyamdorj.

The sides discussed aspects of bilateral cooperation, as well as its expansion and promotion during the consultations.

The round of political consultations was attended by non-resident Ambassador of Qatar to Mongolia Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Dehaimi, Assistant Director of Asian Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Al Jawhar Yousef Obaidan and the accompanying delegation.

Ard Financial Group JSC was invited as a member of the World Economic Forum's New Champions, becoming the first Mongolian company to join the community.

The New Champions are a community of purpose driven companies of mid-sized, whose corporate leaders understand the changes needed to operate into the new world. They implement innovative solutions and act as responsible proponents of stakeholder capitalism. They are a community of changemakers with visionary leaders and inspiring others into that direction.

Through this community all employees of Ard Financial Group will have the opportunity to expand their knowledge through their platform. Furthermore, the company will have the opportunity to expand internationally, and C-level executives will be invited to participate in major events organized by the World Economic Forum and promote Mongolia and Ard Financial Group.

The New Champions selection criteria includes: Committed to improving the state of the world; Purpose-driven company taking action to align their business strategy to their social, environment and governance goals; Outpacing average growth in relation to industry over the past three years; Global or regional leader in industry or market; Leadership demonstrates highest level of integrity; Champion new business models, work with emerging technologies or push innovative solutions to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges.

The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. Its purpose is to bring together stakeholders from all sectors of society to shape a better future and generate great impact through purpose-driven communities and platforms. Ard Financial Group is Mongolia's leading fintech company that invests in finance and technology companies as part of its mission to build the Investor Nation.

Two of the world's most high-profile technology billionaires - Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - have agreed to fight each other in a cage match.

Mr Musk posted a message on his social media platform Twitter that he was "up for a cage fight" with Mr Zuckerberg.

Mr Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, then posted a screenshot of Mr Musk's tweet with the caption "send me location".

"The story speaks for itself," a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.

Mr Musk then replied to Mr Zuckerberg's response with: "Vegas Octagon."

The Octagon is the competition mat and fenced-in area used for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts. The UFC is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mr Musk, who turns 52 later this month, also tweeted: "I have this great move that I call 'The Walrus', where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing."

He later tweeted short videos of walruses, perhaps suggesting his challenge to Mr Zuckerberg may not entirely be serious.

He also tweeted: "I almost never work out, except for picking up my kids & throwing them in the air."

Meanwhile, 39-year-old Mr Zuckerberg has already been training in mixed martial arts (MMA) and has recently won jiu-jitsu tournaments.

Twitter did not provide a statement when contacted by the BBC for comment.

The exchanges have gone viral with social media users debating who would win the bout, while others have posted memes including mocked up posters advertising the fight.

For example, business consultant Seyi Taylor tweeted: "Choose your fighter" with pictures of the two tech bosses.

Earlier this month, Meta showed staff plans for a text-based social network designed to compete with Twitter, sources told the BBC.

It could allow users to follow accounts they already follow on Instagram, Meta's image-sharing app.

It could potentially allow the company to bring over followers from decentralised platforms such as Mastodon.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that the platform was in development.

The text-based network - which has a working title of P92 - could turn out to be a greater rival to Elon Musk's Twitter than either BlueSky or Mastodon.

International Trade Center’s flagship annual event, the World Export Development Forum (WEDF) will take place in Ulaanbaatar on June 27-28, 2023, under the auspices of President of Mongolia H.E. Mr. Khurelsukh Ukhnaa under the theme of “Diversifying Green Trade: Organic, Digital, Sustainable.” To that extent, we are presenting you the op-ed, written by Tapan Mishra, the Resident Coordinator of United Nations in Mongolia.

As a landlocked country, Mongolia faces a multitude of challenges in trade and export. Its export is largely dependent on mineral resources and primarily as raw material. Yet, we see tremendous opportunities to tap into the potential in trade and export with possible value-added processing, leveraging the advancement in digitalization, which will boost economic diversification and reduce reliance on the mineral sector.

After a few years of setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mongolian economy has shown a sign of recovery in 2022 despite the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Trade turnover for 2022 increased 32 per cent from that of 2021, helping Mongolia enjoy 4.8 per cent economic growth in 2022.

However, such recovery comes from regaining trade in a specific sector with a particular trading partner - minerals and China. Over 90 per cent of Mongolia’s export items are minerals, while China counts for more than 80 per cent of Mongolia’s total export. This represents a chronically narrow-based Mongolia’s trade structure, making its economy vulnerable to external shocks.

Furthermore, Mongolia, with its geographical disadvantage of being landlocked, suffers from higher costs and a longer time in transportation and trade logistics, moving its goods across borders. Mongolia, suffering from multi-faceted trade challenges, underperforms in the global market despite its huge trade potential.

According to the UN Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation 2021, Mongolia stands far lower than the Asia-Pacific regional as well as global averages in implementation. Mongolia’s trade is the least integrated with the world. While it is a member of WTO, it is a party to merely two regional trade agreements – the Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan and the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA).

Trade and logistics connectivity of Mongolia is significantly constrained. In World Bank’s latest Logistics Performance Index, Mongolia ranked 97th globally. In UNCTAD’s productive capacities index, capacity of a country to produce goods and services and enable it to grow and develop, Mongolia ranked 94th globally.

International trade has been the backbone of Mongolia’s economic growth. Its trade-to-GDP ratio has stood consistently at over 100 per cent. While domestic market expansion is one way of increasing a country’s economic growth, it is not an easy option for Mongolia, as it is a country with a relatively small population spreading over a huge territory.

Given that Mongolia has a limited domestic market base and tremendous natural resources to supply to the global market, trade-led economic growth is an obvious resort for which Mongolia should strive.

In driving trade-led economic development, Mongolia should take a holistic approach of enhancing its capacity in all four dimensions of trade:

Facilitation of streamlined procedures, which reduces trade costs.

Integration which accelerates Mongolia’s access to the global market, thus supporting its third neighbour policy.

Connectivity links its physical and digital networks to the World for an easier flow of its goods and services. and

Promotion helps Mongolia cultivate the export market, attracting investment and diversifying industries.

By taking such a holistic approach, Mongolia can address the challenges and leverage the untapped potential effectively. In strengthening Mongolia’s capacity in four dimensions, five cross-cutting enablers: policy/governance, human and financial resource, infrastructure, digitalization, and cooperation – should be levelled up to narrow capacity gaps and create a virtuous trade eco-system.

Clear policy lays a foundation for creating a trade eco-system while governance ensures its sustainability.

Human and financial resource is an engine for driving implementation of a trade eco-system and keeps it operational.

Infrastructure, both soft and hard, stands as a backbone to ensure a seamless flow of goods and services.

Digitalization streamlines the way we do business and fosters new digital services and businesses.

Cooperation firms up linkage of Mongolia’s trade ecosystem to those of overseas trading partners for market expansion.

Recognized as one of the means of implementation for the SDGs, trade is directly related to supporting one of three strategic priorities of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) Mongolia for 2023 – 2027- green, inclusive, and sustainable growth. As a joint strategic planning framework for collaboration between the United Nations and the Government of Mongolia, the UNSDCF is aligned with the national sustainable development priorities of Mongolia, set in both the New Recovery Policy, a mid-term policy, and Mongolia’s Vision-2050, a long-term development policy.

Trade is an important instrument for realizing two of the New Recovery Policy, recovery of operations of border ports and industrial recovery, as well as goal 4 of the Vision 2050 – becoming a nation with sustainable economic growth.

The United Nations in Mongolia is committed to supporting the Government of Mongolia in narrowing trade development gaps and shaping up its trade ecosystem for sustainable development – an effort of continuously improving trade efficiency while diversifying its export markets and products.

In 2023, the United Nations in Mongolia has already embarked on a series of serious efforts in this front. The Global Digital Dialogue 2023 with a focus on trade and e-Commerce was organized in connection with the launch of the eT Ready report for improving Mongolia’s overall e-Commerce environment and the ICT Expo 2023: Mindgolia for accelerating Mongolia’s transition from mine-centric to mind-driven economy. The World Export Development Forum (WEDF) 2023 will be organized in the last week of June to help cultivate the unrealized export potential. All of them are being done in a close partnership with UN agencies with proven professional expertise and experience in Trade, such as United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and International Trade Centre (ITC), as well as with the leadership of the Government of Mongolia.

The United Nations in Mongolia will stand as a strong partner in Mongolia’s trade development journey, in close coordination and cooperation with all relevant stakeholders and key players, including related United Nations agencies and other Development Partners.

The Power of Siberia-2 (PoS2) gas pipeline has the potential to transform Northeast Asian energy security dynamics, provided Moscow and Beijing agree to its specific terms. With a predicted annual transport capacity of around 50 billion cubic metres of gas, the pipeline’s construction will increase the natural gas supply to China and Asia.

This new source of natural gas will help states diversify their energy portfolios and potentially enable a faster transition away from coal. The pipeline’s construction and maintenance will generate thousands of new jobs across the region and billions of dollars in revenue.

While China is the clear winner from this new source of stable supply at a bargain price, Mongolia will also see socio-economic and strategic benefits. Some observers have cautioned Ulaanbaatar against working with Russia and China on ideological and strategic grounds. But a cost-benefit analysis suggests that Mongolia has far more to gain than to lose from its potential intermediary role in the project.

Economically, Mongolia expects the PoS2 to contribute up to US$1 billion a year in transit fees to the country’s revenue, create employment, facilitate economic diversification and accelerate its energy transition away from coal. All these developments are necessary conditions for Mongolia’s sustainable growth.

Mongolia is a developing economy with an average per capita income of just over US$4500, an underemployment rate of more than 12 per cent and an overdependence on resource extraction. Such an economic windfall will have substantial implications for Mongolia’s development.

On energy, Mongolia’s ability to import natural gas through the PoS2 pipeline will help it transition more rapidly away from coal. Mongolia uses coal for 85 per cent of its energy supply and relies on Soviet-era coal-fired combined heat and power plants (CHPs) to service its main cities.

These outdated coal CHPs create heavy air pollution during the winter and directly impact the quality of life of Mongolia’s urban residents. Children suffer from respiratory illness as a result. While Mongolia must invest in solar and wind power in the long-term, natural gas offers a short- to medium-term means to reduce coal use. It also offers a long-term means to offset intermittency in renewable energy supply.

Environmentally, the PoS2 could have a positive impact on Mongolia’s overall carbon footprint. While environmental groups have criticised Mongolia’s decision to replace one fossil fuel with another, such criticism is misplaced. Natural gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide as coal when burned and produces far fewer harmful pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide and particulate matter.

Just as many Asian economies see the transition away from fossil fuels as an incremental process — one that is predicated on moving from coal to cleaner alternatives — so has the Mongolian government prioritised short-term solutions over a long-term fix. In this respect, Ulaanbaatar has rightfully avoided the issue of letting the perfect get in the way of the good.

These are the fundamental considerations — economic, energy and environmental security — that should and do inform Ulaanbaatar’s decision on participating in the PoS2 project. It is not the geopolitical ‘turn of the screws’ as some analysts have suggested.

One finds little — if any — reference to perceived coercion from Russia and China in Mongolian-language writings on the PoS2. Mongolian analysts largely view the PoS2 as a strategic windfall — one that raises the country’s status within Northeast Asia and with Russia and China.

But Mongolia should still try to mitigate any potential risks associated with the PoS2 project. Ulaanbaatar can work closely with regional organisations like the Asian Development Bank to ensure transparency and accountability throughout the tender and construction processes.

Mongolian leadership can also adhere to international best practices in environmental impact mitigation and take measures to ensure that the country has the proper energy infrastructure in place to benefit from gas imports when the time comes.

Fortunately, Mongolia can use much of the same energy infrastructure for natural gas that it needs for other renewable gaseous fuels. This means that investment in gas infrastructure now will help integrate renewable energy sources into the country’s energy grid later.

Mongolia can also de-risk the PoS2’s potential contribution to strategic vulnerability through a foreign policy predicated on omni-enmeshment and balance of influence. This means maintaining ties with both Russia and China to avoid dependency on either — a strategy Mongolia and other Central Asian states have successfully used for decades.

For states like Japan, South Korea and the United States — all having vested interests in Mongolia’s strategic autonomy — this means furthering cooperation through operations and dialogue designed to bolster a stable regional order.

While these mitigation efforts should alleviate whatever residual concern remains among analysts, they can also be seen as direct benefits of Mongolia’s involvement in the PoS2 project. The more Mongolia integrates itself into Asia’s energy networks, the more it gains in strategic value across the region, such as in the US Seize the Initiative strategy.

Ulaanbaatar should not shy away from such opportunities because of potential downsides. It should instead run towards them.

BY:

Jeffrey Reeves is Practice Lead, Asia, with Onyx Strategic Insights.