Stroke and heart attack become curable in Mongolia www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/Outcomes of the 5-year project Stroke and Heart Attack, implemented with funding of USD 1.15 million from the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Mongolia and with support of the World Health Organization, has been presented on December 21 at the State Central Third Hospital (SCTH).

Cake imports to Mongolia as demand soars www.news.mn

Mongolians eat cakes on birthdays, at New Year and on any other occasion worth celebrating! According to statistics, nearly 2500 cakes are sold daily in Ulaanbaatar, but when New Year comes, demand leaps to 30 thousand. Mongolia producers provide 60 percent of the cake demand. Revenue for Mongolian from cake producers has reached over MNT 160 billion. This year, Mongolia has imported cakes worth USD 30 thousand from Russia and Ukraine.

Products of Uzbek-British JV conquers new markets www.azernews.az

Despite the relatively recent start of the project to transform UZBAT JV into an export hub for the supply of finished tobacco products in the countries of Central Asia and Mongolia, the geography of export deliveries is expanding with each month.

Since the second half of 2018, the products of the Samarkand cigarette factory have been successfully sold in the markets of neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

Tajikistan joined these countries and the first consignment of tobacco products with the inscription “Made in Uzbekistan” was already sent to this country in December 2018.

The company is seriously focused on increasing exports of finished products and is not going to be limited only to the markets of Central Asia and Mongolia. Since December of this year, UZBAT JV has started to supply products to the Georgian market. First five trucks with a batch of products under the BAT trademarks went to Sakartvelo on December 22.

Summing up the results of 2018, JV UZBAT successfully implemented the export program planned for this year, somewhat exceeding the export forecast obtained at the beginning of the year through the line of Uzbekozikovkatholding Holding Company.

The Company has set itself even more ambitious plans for the export of finished products for 2019, the implementation of which will largely depend on the stable macroeconomic situation in the country and on export markets, as well as on the well-coordinated activities of all departments of the company.

The Uzbek-British company British American Tobacco Uzbekistan (JV UZBAT AO JSC) was established on November 22, 1994, as a joint venture with state participation. The company is one of the leading foreign investors and the largest British investor in the Uzbek economy with an accumulated volume of direct investments of about $400 million.

Currently, the joint venture of JSC JV “UZBAT AO” is the only manufacturing company of the BAT group in Central Asia, which includes the Tashkent office, the Samarkand cigarette factory (BAT SSF), and the Urgut fermentation plant (BAT UFZ) on the processing of raw tobacco. The company operates in the framework of a full technological and production cycle - from growing in cooperation with domestic farmers and tobacco growers of green raw tobacco to the production of finished products for the needs of the domestic market and exports abroad.

Today about 400 highly professional workers are employed by BAT SSF. For the needs of the Uzbek domestic market, 28 assortment items of tobacco products of international brands such as Kent, Pall mall, Rothmans, and Viceroy are manufactured at the SSF, not counting the export nomenclature. BAT SSF has three production shops - a workshop for the primary processing of raw tobacco into a finished cigarette bag, a filter production workshop, an assembly and packaging workshop. BAT UFZ employs 200 permanent and more than 400 seasonal (for more than six months) employees. BAT UFZ has modern equipment for processing both traditional Oriental (eastern) and semi-oriental tobaccos (Dubek, Izimr, Basma) traditional for Uzbekistan, and a new elite variety of Virginia tobacco, which was cultivated in Uzbekistan several years ago after years of experiments.

JV UZBAT directly employs 1,200 people and indirectly about 10,000 more people: 600 farmers, 7,000 tobacco growers, 2,000 employees of enterprises from related industries and services (production of group packaging and consumer packaging, agricultural equipment and fertilizers, warehouse and trade equipment, wholesale distribution of tobacco products, transport and logistics, engineering and utilities), not counting the retail trade. The company allocated more than 3 billion soums ($360,000) to implement various social projects in 2017.

Mongolia oil extraction figures of 2018 www.news.mn

Mongolia extracted a total of 6.007 million barrels, or 814,506 tons, of crude oil this year. According to Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry, the country has exported 5.879 million barrels, or 798,485 tons, of crude oil to China.

Engine of growth: Trade turnover across China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ exceeds $5 trillion since 2013 www.rt.com

It’s been five years since Beijing announced the ambitious multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese companies have already built 82 economic and trade cooperation zones in 24 countries along the BRI routes.
The project has created more than 240,000 jobs in BRI countries, according to China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi.

China Still Has a Treasure Chest of Overseas Real Estate to Sell www.bloomberg.com

China’s biggest-ever overseas property buying spree reversed course in dramatic fashion in 2018. But even after the record unwinding, many lucrative real estate assets remain in Chinese hands.

They include the 245 Park Ave skyscraper in Manhattan, New York’s famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel and Chicago’s Vista Tower, under construction but envisaged as one of the city’s tallest buildings.

With economic growth slowing, keeping a tight rein on capital outflows is expected to remain a key theme for Beijing. That could see disposal records smashed again in 2019.

Beijing put an end to the party in mid 2017, telling the nation’s four largest private conglomerates -- HNA Group Co., Anbang Insurance Group Co., Fosun International Ltd. and Dalian Wanda Group Co. -- they had borrowed too aggressively.

A forced liquidation was mandated and a “banned list” produced that dumped offshore property and hotels in the restricted basket, and casinos in the don’t even think about it one.

Still, it wasn’t until the end of that year the spending tapered off. In 2016 and 2017 combined, Chinese companies splashed out an unprecedented $89 billion on real estate.

In 2018, the deleveraging drive really started to take effect. Real estate asset sales by Chinese companies have surged to $12.3 billion since January, up from $5.3 billion the year prior, preliminary data compiled by Real Capital Analytics show.

“While capital controls remain in place, China won’t be the main driver of Asian outbound investment,” said Stephanie Yang, CBRE Group Inc.’s senior director of global capital markets. Buyers from places including Singapore and South Korea are already taking the place of Chinese in markets such as the U.S. and Europe, she said.

The asset sales were “driven in part by the government’s push to reign in the most aggressive buyers, but also by a requirement to reduce debt levels,” said Jeffrey Langbaum, a commercial real estate analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

HNA was arguably the worst offender on the trophy collection front, amassing stakes in airlines, catering companies, tech distributors, hotels, asset managers and a currency exchange. Wanda got into cinemas --- it’s now the world’s largest movie-theater operator -- while Fosun, run by Guo Guangchang, a self-styled Chinese Warren Buffett, bought Club Med and a stakes in overseas fashion houses.

Anbang’s unfettered spending, meanwhile, saw authorities seize control of the conglomerate in February and the insurer’s former chairman, Wu Xiaohui, sentenced in May to 18 years in prison after being convicted of fundraising fraud and embezzlement.

HNA has gone some way to making amends, ending 2018 as the No. 1 seller among the four and accounting for five of the 10 biggest property disposals. Even so, affiliate units have been missing loan and bond payments for months, evidence more cash needs to be brought in the door to overcome HNA’s liquidity challenges.

“The deleveraging trend will continue through the first half of next year,” said James Shepherd, the managing director of Greater China research at Cushman & Wakefield Inc. He said Chinese investors had often relied upon local banks to back their buying sprees. With that tap turned off, and refinancing pressures mounting, further assets sales are inevitable.

And there are willing buyers. A consortium including Ping An Real Estate Co. and China Life Insurance Co. sold a 13-story Boston building for $450 million in August, setting a record for an office transaction in the city.

“The ongoing uncertainties of the trade conflict will put pressure on foreign reserves and the value of the yuan, so capital controls will most likely continue in 2019,” Tom Moffat, CBRE’s Hong Kong-based head of capital markets Asia, said. That will mean ongoing “selective disposals from Chinese investors, whether they’re looking to strengthen their balance sheets or realize a decent profit from their early investments.”

— With assistance by Emma Dong, and Jinshan Hong

Emperor Akihito: Huge crowds as Japan monarch gives emotional farewell www.bbc.com

More than 80,000 people have paid their respects to Japan's Emperor Akihito as he gave his final birthday address before his abdication in April.

MNB World channel launches www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ An official launching of the first English channel ‘MNB World’ of the Mongolian National Public Radio and Television (MNB), which will deliver news and media programs in English, took place on December 20.

Former Inner Mongolia bank chief handed death sentence with two-year reprieve www.globaltimes.cn

A former bank chief in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on Friday by a local court for accepting bribes and embezzling public funds worth tens of millions of US dollars.

Engagement plan for Mongolia Country Partnership Framework www.worldbank.com

The World Bank Group is organizing second round of public engagements with diverse stakeholder groups to gather their views and recommendations as it prepares the new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Mongolia. The CPF identifies and prioritizes critical areas where the World Bank Group support would have the biggest impact in promoting sustainable poverty reduction and shared prosperity, from 2019 to 2024.

Face-to-face meetings will be organized with government, Parliament, civil society organizations, donors and development partners as well as private sector groups from January 28 to February 1, 2019. Online consultations will continue from December 24, 2018 to February 28, 2019 to enable participation of the broader population.

BACKGROUND

The first round of engagements to gather feedback on key opportunities and challenges to ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity in Mongolia as well as potential WBG support areas was organized in August–October 2017. More than 400 stakeholders from government, Parliament, development partners, civil society organizations and private sector in Ulaanbaatar and 4 regions shared their views through face-to-face meetings and online surveys. The analytical document on Mongolia’s development challenges and opportunities in which the feedback from previous round of engagement was considered is available at here . Summary of the feedback can be found at this link and is also available as an attachment to the Mongolia - Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD).

KEY STAKEHOLDERS:

Second round of engagements will be conducted with a wide range of stakeholders in Ulaanbaatar as well as, including:

Government: government ministries and agencies
Parliament
Development Partners: UN agencies, donors, multilateral and bilateral development partners
Civil Society Organizations: Non-profit organizations and associations, labor groups, think tanks, academia and research groups
Private Sector: Representatives from the business sector, foreign and domestic invested businesses, small and medium enterprises, chambers of commerce, business councils.
ENGAGEMENT PROCESS:

The engagements process will include both face-to-face meetings as well as online/web-based platform to enable participation by a wide range of stakeholders. The structure of face-to-face meetings will allow plenary presentations and discussions and, if needed, small group discussions, and reporting with a neutral facilitator. For online engagement, interested stakeholders will be able to send feedback and comments by email.

LANGUAGE:

The engagements with UN and development partners, academia, private sector will be conducted in English with simultaneous translation to Mongolian language. The engagements with the government, Parliament, civil society organizations and other local groups will be conducted in Mongolian with simultaneous translation to English.

INVITATIONS AND BACKGROUND MATERIALS:

Invitations and relevant background materials in English and Mongolian will be sent to the participants before the scheduled meetings.

STAKEHOLDER FEEDBACK:

Meeting summaries, in both Mongolian and English, will be posted on the consultation website for Mongolia.

After the final approval, the CPF will be made publicly available and posted on the World Bank in Mongolia website.