Freight up to 30 million tons per year will be transported through the railroad which lays the foundation for Asia-Europe economic corridor. The railroad is considered to be of critical importance in the revival of Mongolian economy.

Minister of Road and Transport Development D.Ganbat, Members of Parliament D.Damba-Ochir and O.Sodbileg, Trade Representative of the Russian Federation to Mongolia M.L.Vasiliev attended the ground-breaking ceremony held on June 20.

Russian Trade Representative Mr. Vasiliev said, “The trilateral economic corridor agreement between Russia, Mongolia and China is being realized”. He remarked on the railroad’s economic and political importance to the three countries and potential to solve international issues.

Northern Railways LLC is executing the construction work worth USD 1.3 billion.

“This is a mutually beneficial project. It is profitable to establish connection between power systems of the East and Siberia. The Transit-500 project has an estimated cost of about 55 billion rubles. But it is only about our profit, the project will need further development to provide Mongolia with reliable power exports,” he said.

The power bridge may ensure supplies to five isolated power systems of Mongolia, and a distribution grid should be constructed in the country.

“It needs financing. My colleagues and I are preparing a plan for development of the power industry with Mongolian power experts, the French are also a part of this. It will be clear by the end of the year. Representatives of China, Russia and Mongolia may participate in financing of the project,” he said.

Mongolia plans to build a dam on the Selenga River which flows into the Lake Baikal, but Russia has repeatedly warned about significant ecological risks of the project and expressed readiness to compensate the lack of power in the country. In April, Budargin said Russia suggested construction of an air power transmission line with a capacity of 500 kV or higher to transfer 1 gigawatt of power to Mongolia.

(58.5786 rubles – U.S. $1)

Guglielmo Picchi (MP, Italy) was appointed by the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office as Special Co-ordinator to lead the short-term OSCE observer mission, and will deliver the preliminary post-election statement at a press conference in Ulaanbaatar on 27 June.

“Since joining the OSCE in 2012, Mongolia has been an active and engaged member of the OSCE family, even hosting the Autumn Meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly in 2015. I look forward to observing first-hand the state of democratic progress in the country,” said Picchi.

The OSCE PA’s observation mission is headed by Georgios Varemenos (MP, Greece). Varemenos is the head of OSCE PA’s Greek Delegation, and has participated in numerous election observation missions with the OSCE PA.

Special Co-ordinator Picchi serves as Vice-Chair of the General Committee on Political Affairs and Security of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and as Vice-Chair of the PA's Ad Hoc Committee on Migration. He served as Head of the OSCE PA’s election observation mission to the Georgian parliamentary elections in 2016.

The OSCE PA observation mission to the Mongolian presidential election works closely with observers from the OSCE/ODIHR headed by Ambassador Geert-Hinrich Ahrens and parliamentary observers from the European Parliament led by Laima Andrikiene.

The elections will be assessed based on their compliance with criteria for democratic elections laid out in the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document.

Sides signed the cooperation agreement on June 21, Wednesday. The project team will identify a strategy to develop Mongolia’s foreign exchange market in the frameworks of the program which will wrap up this year.

The Bank of Korea’s study on Mongolian foreign exchange market is expected to make a major contribution to Mongolian economy, especially foreign exchange policy.

D.Boldbaatar, Senior economist in the Monetary Policy division of the Bank of Mongolia said, “Mongolia’s exchange market is relatively less transparent, and isn’t functioning efficiently”.

TVEL, the fuel supply wing of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, has begun production of TVS-KVADRAT (FA-SQUARE), the new fuel type designed for PWR (pressurized water reactor) plants of Western design.

“A contract on test-industrial operations with one of the US [nuclear power plants] operators is already signed, and we’ll deliver test batch of TVS-KVADRAT fuel assemblies in 2019,” TVEL's Senior VP for Commerce and International Business, Oleg Grigoriev, told reporters at a news conference during the Atomexpo-2017 forum on Tuesday.

TVEL has already received all the necessary documents from the US plant operator enabling the company to adopt Russian fuel for the US reactor.

“We’re determined to sign another contract on test-industrial operations this year with another major US nuclear power plant operator. In all, there’re five companies in the consortium which supports the TVS-KVADRAT program in the US,” Grigoriev added.

Apart from the contract with a US nuclear power plant operator, TVEL signed an agreement last year on commercial delivery of TVS-KVADRAT fuel to Swedish Vattenfall Nuclear Fuel AB which operates the Ringhals nuclear power plant. The commercial deliveries for Sweden are scheduled to start in 2021, according to Grigoriev.

The TVS-KVADRATs are currently produced in volumes needed to meet the demand of the two companies, but TVEL might expand its production if needed.

“There’re possibilities for scaling the production up. It will depend on the market demand,” Grigoriev told reporters on Monday.

The TVS-KVADRAT fuel type is being produced at JSC Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant. The fuel assemblies derive its name from it being square in section, to be compatible with western pressurized water reactors.

During the meeting, ministers discussed changes to an agreement on labor made between the Government of Mongolia, the Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions, and the Employers’ Federation. Following the discussion, they agreed to increase pension rates on January 1, 2018.

Deputy Minister of Finance Kh.Bulgantuya said that the average pension rate will be raised by 11 percent, and that 161 billion MNT will be required for pension payments.

Deputy Minister of Education, Culture, Sciences, and Sports Yo.Otgonbayar stated that regulations for the state’s student loan program have been changed. Under the previous regulations, only students who were enrolled full-time in a bachelor’s degree program were eligible to take out a student loan, but the new regulations allow part-time bachelor’s degree, master’s, and PhD students to apply for the program as well. He emphasized that the old regulations only allowed students to get a loan from a bank in their place of permanent residence, but the new regulations allow students to take out a student loan from any bank.

The Deputy Minister noted that the student’s sponsor for a loan application can now be a family member with the changes made to the program’s regulations, or a Mongolian national who wants to help the student can assist by co-signing the loan. He added that students under the age of 18 can apply for a student loan with the help of a sponsor, and that the children of herders can apply for a student loan with terms and conditions specific to herder households.

Yo.Otgonbayar stated that applications for the student loan must be accompanied by seven different documents, but that under the new regulations, a bank can accept the documents in digital format for application review. He added that 41,000 students will now have the opportunity to apply for a student loan thanks to the changes that have been made to the program.

On June 20, Tuesday, German Ambassador Stefan Duppel handed over a copy of the original partitur which is kept in the archive of German DEFA studio to Deputy Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh.

First recorded in the DEFA studio in 1961, the original partitur wasn’t stored in Mongolian musical repertoire.

The Deputy Prime Minister who is heading the Commission in charge of Naadam celebration had made a request to the German side so as to play the film score at the Naadam opening ceremony on July 11.

Expressing his gratitude to the German Ambassador and other officials who made efforts to bring the partitur to Mongolia, Deputy Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh gifted a Morin Khuur.

The ‘Exquisite Mongolia’ documentary film was co-produced by Mongolian Film Factory and the DEFA studio in 1961 in dedication to the 40th anniversary of People’s Revolution.

E.Choidog’s ‘Exquisite Mongolia’ film score is one of the works that won him State Prize.