Mitsubishi appears to be considering local production.

Vietnam's appetite for cars is growing as its middle class class expands. But the increase in air pollution from cars and coal-fired thermal power stations is forcing the government to pin its hopes on electric vehicles, which cause less environmental damage.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and Mitsubishi Motors will sign a memorandum of understanding on Monday afternoon. The two will jointly study electric vehicles deemed suitable for Vietnamese roads, traffic conditions and available charging infrastructure.

Prior to the study, Mitsubishi will supply Vietnam with the Outlander plug-in hybrid vehicle.

Mitsubishi Motors aims for 50% growth in ASEAN auto sales
In Vietnam, electric and hybrid vehicles are rare. But since the country has a 200-plus-volt system, it is easy to charge the vehicles at home, according to both the government and Mitsubishi. Because of Vietnam's narrow roads, the government thinks Mitsubishi Motors' compact electric vehicles, such as the i-MiEV, are a good choice.

Vietnam Electricity recently opened the first charging station in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang. Vingroup JSC, the country's leading real estate company, which has been working to produce the first national vehicle, is also developing an electric vehicle.

Vietnam aims to become a leading industrial nation by 2020, with the auto industry slated to be one of its main pillars. New auto sales fell by 10% year-on-year to 272,750 units in 2017 from a record 300,000 units in 2016.

The sharp drop was attributed to the abolition of import tariffs in January 2018.

But the wealthy and the middle class are buying more cars. The Ministry of Industry and Trade expects new auto sales to more than double to 600,000 units annually in 2025.

At the meeting, the sides discussed about talks and projects agreed previously in agriculture sector and accomplishments of actions. They also exchanged views on expanding bilateral cooperation and implementing joint projects to introduce new technology in animal husbandry and veterinary. In this scope, the sides agreed to implement a project ‘Capacity-building of Mongolia’s veterinary sector’ from 2019.

In the sidelines of the meeting, S.Korean side visited the Institute of Technology of Mongolia, where they got familiar with operations of a small-sized milk and meat processing enterprise which was established under the 2012-2015 joint project ‘Improvement of production technology of animal-related products and hygienic control system in Mongolia’. They also shared views on keeping outcomes of the project stable. As a part of the project activity, students who major in meat and milk processing technology and the staff of the enterprise are being trained to improve their capacity.

In 2003, the Agriculture ministries of Mongolia and the Republic of Korea established a protocol of cooperation. With a purpose to implement the protocol, a joint committee was set up in 2004 to define directions of cooperation and joint projects and activities.
M. Unurzul

According to the BoM, the campaign will run until May 31, 2018.

At the launch ceremony, the Governor of BoM Bayartsaikhan Nadmid addressed “The balance of relations between banks and herders has been disturbed. Same goes to insurance companies and herders. We reached a conclusion we must focus on balancing the relations between these organizations and the people. Therefore, we are planning to prepare a draft Law on Financial Consumer Protection within the campaign period. I will personally be held responsible for submitting the draft to the Parliament. The final product of this campaign will be a draft law. As a result, Mongolian people nd the financial organizations will benefit from it.”

According to the Legal Department of the BoM, the BoM has implemented a consumer protection project in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank and is now launching a campaign as a result of the project. Since the BoM is responsible for regulating the banking sector, the main partners will be commercial banks. The BoM has set an objective to cooperative with 14 commercial banks in the following 5 months and take types of actions.

“Government of Mongolia is ready to collaborate in developing good tax governance, supporting transparency and improving information sharing within the scope of the 38th provision of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Mongolia and the EU and its member states which entered into force on November 1, 2017 as well as to contribute to global efforts to develop open, transparent and good governance.

In this framework, Mongolian Government submitted its official request join Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes and also Mongolia became the 111th country to implement ‘Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting' (BEPS) by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)”, the letter says. 
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B.Batchimeg

Ukhnaa Khurelsukh arrived here earlier in the day on a three-day visit. He is set to attend a joint business forum and meet other Korean leaders before heading home Wednesday.

Moon's meeting with Khurelsukh will be held later in the day at Cheong Wa Dae, and Mongolian Foreign Minister Tsend Munkh-Org and other visiting officials, including lawmakers, will also participate, according to Cheong Wa Dae.

Monday's meeting comes about four months after Moon and his Mongolian counterpart Khaltmaagiin Battulga agreed to increase exchange and cooperation between their countries in a bilateral summit held on the sidelines of a regional economic forum in Vladivostok, Russia, in September.

South Korea and Mongolia established diplomatic ties in 1990.

In his letter sent on January 12, the Speaker requested President Kh.Battulga to call for regular consumption of traditional Mongolian dairy products by enterprises and households by issuing a decree, while informing the President of his initiative to promote production and consumption of traditional Mongolian dairy products so as to ensure food safety.

Moreover, the Speaker forwarded a proposal to Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh regarding measures such as ensuring production quality and standards for traditional Mongolian dairy products, improving the database, human resource and transport and logistics infrastructure, and promoting innovation technology and investment in the production of dairy products.
Kh.Aminaa

Bitmain Technologies, the operator of some of the largest mining farms in China, is among several companies looking to expand overseas. The company’s spokesman, Nishant Sharma, told Reuters that it is eyeing bitcoin mining sites in Canada’s Québec province, which currently enjoys an energy surplus. He added that the company is in talks with regional power authorities in the province, and that it is also planning to expand in Switzerland.

Two Chinese miners said local authorities in China are increasingly unwilling to allow expansion and had started to shut down some mines in late 2017, as China clamped down on cryptocurrencies.

“We, and from what I understand many of our peers, are already making plans to go overseas,” said Li Wei, chief executive of ZQMiner, a Wuhan-based company which sells bitcoin mining equipment and has mines in three Chinese provinces.

According to public utility Hydro Québec, the energy surplus of the province is equivalent to up to 100 Terawatt hours over the course of ten years. One Terawatt hour powers about 60,000 homes in Québec during one year.

David Vincent, the director of business development at Hydro Québec distribution, said that “mining companies are eyeing operations from about 20 megawatts, the size of a data centre, to sites as large as 300 megawatts, about the size of a small aluminum smelter.”

Once a driving force behind cryptocurrency mining, China accounted for more than two-thirds of the world’s bitcoin-mining operations. However, recently, Chinese regulators started cracking down on virtual currencies, explaining it as a fight with capital outflow. They claimed the trade in cryptocurrencies was being used by Chinese citizens to move cash abroad.

Last year, the regulators banned bitcoin trading and initial coin offerings (ICOs,) which forced all bitcoin exchanges and cryptocurrency trading platforms to immediately stop registering new users, and announce plans to stop virtual currency transaction services.

The parent will sell some 30 percent of SoftBank Corp. It plans to apply to the Tokyo Stock Exchange for the IPO as early as spring, which falls between March and May, and aims to debut the shares in Tokyo and elsewhere, possibly London, around autumn, the newspaper said, without citing any sources for the information.

The 2 trillion yen ($18 billion) IPO would rival the 2.2 trillion yen 1987 listing of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (9432.T) in size, the Nikkei said, making it one of Japan’s biggest initial public offerings.

SoftBank Group said in a statement on Monday that a listing of the business was one option for its capital strategy but that no such decision had been made.

The listing would aim to give the mobile-phone unit more autonomy in a group that has become more of an international investment company in recent years, the newspaper said. SoftBank would use the proceeds to invest in growth, such as buying into foreign information-technology companies, the Nikkei said.

SoftBank has been aggressively investing in tech companies worldwide, notably through its $98 billion London-based Vision Fund, saying last month that a group it leads will buy a large number of shares of Uber Technologies Inc in a deal that values the ride-services firm at $48 billion.

“SoftBank’s future will focus less on the mobile-phone business and more on allocating cash to build the world’s largest portfolio of investments in future technologies and business models,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

“It makes sense to spin off the mobile-phone business using a public offering that would leave SoftBank in control and provide SoftBank with more cash to pursue its strategy of investing in companies with potentially high growth prospects,” Gordon said by email. “It is a way of obtaining capital without adding debt or diluting SoftBank’s equity interests in the growth companies.”

A parent company normally must limit its stake in a subsidiary listed on the TSE First Section to less than 65 percent, but the requirement can be eased if the unit also lists overseas, the Nikkei said.