Cabinet reviews mining, infrastructure, social and cultural issues
During its weekly meeting on Wednesday, Cabinet discussed several socio-economic and infrastructure issues.
Cabinet approved coordinates of areas eligible for exploration licenses. The new approval of coordinates aims to ensure sustainable mining activities, stimulate economic growth, and increase mineral resource reserves and investment in the mining sector.
According to the approval of the coordinates, tenders for nearly 170 mining exploration licenses will be announced this year. The government believes that nearly 25 billion MNT will be streamed to the state budget from tender processes for 25 to 30 licenses, each of which is made up of 5,000 hectares of land on average.
Officials confirmed that 8.48 million hectares for exploration licenses covering 5.56 percent of the country’s total territory do not overlap with areas of valid exploration and mining licenses, special needs, protected and prohibited zones, and state reserves.
During the meeting, representatives from the ministries of energy; and roads and transportation reported that electric transmission power lines in Kharkhorin soum of Uvurkhangai Province, and Undur-Ulaan, Khotont and Khashaat soums of Arkhangai Province were broken and their polls fell due to heavy rainfall and strong winds that occurred last month. In addition, some local roads in Bayan-Ulgii, Bulgan, Gobisumber, Dornogovi, Zavkhan, Uvurkhangai, Umnugovi and Tuv provinces were severely damaged by floods.
Cabinet ministers decided to allocate 742 million MNT from the Government Reserve Fund to these provinces for damage response.
Cabinet supported a draft intergovernmental agreement on cooperation between educational sectors of Mongolia and Serbia. The agreement aims to develop direct cooperation between the two countries’ educational organizations, to carry out teacher exchange programs, hold workshops, training and conferences amongst the two countries’ educators for promoting their experiences and skills.
During the Wednesday meeting, Cabinet also approved Classical Arts III National Program to promote the development of the nation’s classical arts. Under the program, a number of measures will be taken and the required funding will be included in the basic guidelines of annual socio-economic development. The government will also seek financial resources for taking scheduled measures to promote the nation’s classical arts from the budgets of local governments, international non-refundable aids and other loans and assistance, and private sector’s financial sponsorship. The program will be carried out from 2018 to 2023.
Cabinet ministers reviewed agendas for the 11th meeting of Mongolia-Laos intergovernmental commission on trade, economy, science and technical cooperation, which will be held from August 20 to 23 in Ulaanbaatar.
The government plans to review the current state of the relations and cooperation between Mongolia and Laos, discuss the results of the previous intergovernmental meetings and exchange ideas on collaboration opportunities for deepening bilateral cooperation.
Cabinet ministers supported government’s decisions to offer financial rewards for dancer R.Bulgan, who won second place at the XV Russian Open Ballet Competition “Arabesque–2018”, which took place in the city of Perm, Russia from April 11 to 22, and E.Khanui and E.Emujin, students of the National Conservatory who won third places at Kocian Violin Competition 2018 in the Czech Republic.
After the meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs D.Tsogtbaatar stated that Cabinet has decided to open trade missions abroad between 2018 and 2023 to boost exports.
D.Tsogtbaatar said, "Mongolia's economy is on track to stabilize. Now, it is extremely important to boost exports to increase foreign exchange reserves, raise salaries and create more jobs."
The minister emphasized that the trade offices will seek to connect Mongolian enterprises with foreign partners and promote goods made in Mongolia abroad. The performances of officials at the trade offices will be evaluated by the increase of Mongolian exports and interest in Mongolian goods abroad.
According to the minister’s reports, Mongolia’s trade offices will be opened in Tokyo, Beijing and Vladivostok, a major Russian Pacific port city, from 2018 to 2019; in the northern China’s Tianjin City, and Moscow from 2019 to 2021; and in Seoul and Brussels, the capital of Belgium, from 2021 to 2023.