CABINET REVIEWS OFFSHORE TAX SHELTERS, AGRICULTURAL AND EDUCATION PROJECTS, AND CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Cabinet met on August 31 to determine offshore zones that will be banned from Mongolian officials and their associates, resolve financing challenges delaying agricultural and education projects, and approve a new program to improve the country’s occupational safety and health.
During the meeting, Cabinet members approved a list of countries and territories where Mongolian state officials, and their family members and business partners are banned to open bank accounts and to access the ownership of property and real estate.
The list could be updated as the International Monetary Fund, Tax Justice Network, and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development indentifies more tax shelters.
During the meeting, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry P.Sergelen reported about the agricultural technical reform project under Atriin 3 Campaign, which is designed to improve Mongolian farming technologies.
The Prime Minister instructed the Minister of Finance to include the funding for agricultural equipments, purchased through a loan of 10 million USD from the Russian Development Bank, in the 2018 state budget.
Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Sports G.Chuluunbaatar introduced Cabinet to the construction process of the new campus of the Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) and its hospital with 150 beds.
He noted that the student dormitory for 1,500 students and cultural and sports complex is being built with Japanese nonrefundable aid of 174 billion MNT in the 12th khoroo of Bayanzurkh District, which requires an additional financing of 34 billion MNT to be completed next year.
After the campus opens, over 12,000 students and more than 1,000 professors of the NUMS who reside in heavily populated Ulaanbaatar city center will move to the new university campus on the skirts of the capital. The government believes that the city’s traffic congestion will be dramatically reduced as a result. Cabinet members agreed to include the necessary 34 billion MNT in the 2018 state budget to complete the construction of the new university campus in 2018.
Cabinet approved the fifth national program on occupational safety and health and all mayors of districts and provinces were instructed to monitor the implementation of the new program. From 2012 to 2016, 1,854 occupational hazards were reported at construction sites and 273 people died due to serious occupational injuries.