A round of political consultations between the ministries of foreign affairs of Qatar and Mongolia took place in the capital of Mongolia.

The Qatari side was led by Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ahmad Hassen Al-Hammadi, and the Mongolian side was led by State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ankhbayar Nyamdorj.

The sides discussed aspects of bilateral cooperation, as well as its expansion and promotion during the consultations.

The round of political consultations was attended by non-resident Ambassador of Qatar to Mongolia Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Dehaimi, Assistant Director of Asian Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Al Jawhar Yousef Obaidan and the accompanying delegation.

Ard Financial Group JSC was invited as a member of the World Economic Forum's New Champions, becoming the first Mongolian company to join the community.

The New Champions are a community of purpose driven companies of mid-sized, whose corporate leaders understand the changes needed to operate into the new world. They implement innovative solutions and act as responsible proponents of stakeholder capitalism. They are a community of changemakers with visionary leaders and inspiring others into that direction.

Through this community all employees of Ard Financial Group will have the opportunity to expand their knowledge through their platform. Furthermore, the company will have the opportunity to expand internationally, and C-level executives will be invited to participate in major events organized by the World Economic Forum and promote Mongolia and Ard Financial Group.

The New Champions selection criteria includes: Committed to improving the state of the world; Purpose-driven company taking action to align their business strategy to their social, environment and governance goals; Outpacing average growth in relation to industry over the past three years; Global or regional leader in industry or market; Leadership demonstrates highest level of integrity; Champion new business models, work with emerging technologies or push innovative solutions to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges.

The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. Its purpose is to bring together stakeholders from all sectors of society to shape a better future and generate great impact through purpose-driven communities and platforms. Ard Financial Group is Mongolia's leading fintech company that invests in finance and technology companies as part of its mission to build the Investor Nation.

Two of the world's most high-profile technology billionaires - Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - have agreed to fight each other in a cage match.

Mr Musk posted a message on his social media platform Twitter that he was "up for a cage fight" with Mr Zuckerberg.

Mr Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, then posted a screenshot of Mr Musk's tweet with the caption "send me location".

"The story speaks for itself," a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.

Mr Musk then replied to Mr Zuckerberg's response with: "Vegas Octagon."

The Octagon is the competition mat and fenced-in area used for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts. The UFC is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mr Musk, who turns 52 later this month, also tweeted: "I have this great move that I call 'The Walrus', where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing."

He later tweeted short videos of walruses, perhaps suggesting his challenge to Mr Zuckerberg may not entirely be serious.

He also tweeted: "I almost never work out, except for picking up my kids & throwing them in the air."

Meanwhile, 39-year-old Mr Zuckerberg has already been training in mixed martial arts (MMA) and has recently won jiu-jitsu tournaments.

Twitter did not provide a statement when contacted by the BBC for comment.

The exchanges have gone viral with social media users debating who would win the bout, while others have posted memes including mocked up posters advertising the fight.

For example, business consultant Seyi Taylor tweeted: "Choose your fighter" with pictures of the two tech bosses.

Earlier this month, Meta showed staff plans for a text-based social network designed to compete with Twitter, sources told the BBC.

It could allow users to follow accounts they already follow on Instagram, Meta's image-sharing app.

It could potentially allow the company to bring over followers from decentralised platforms such as Mastodon.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that the platform was in development.

The text-based network - which has a working title of P92 - could turn out to be a greater rival to Elon Musk's Twitter than either BlueSky or Mastodon.

International Trade Center’s flagship annual event, the World Export Development Forum (WEDF) will take place in Ulaanbaatar on June 27-28, 2023, under the auspices of President of Mongolia H.E. Mr. Khurelsukh Ukhnaa under the theme of “Diversifying Green Trade: Organic, Digital, Sustainable.” To that extent, we are presenting you the op-ed, written by Tapan Mishra, the Resident Coordinator of United Nations in Mongolia.

As a landlocked country, Mongolia faces a multitude of challenges in trade and export. Its export is largely dependent on mineral resources and primarily as raw material. Yet, we see tremendous opportunities to tap into the potential in trade and export with possible value-added processing, leveraging the advancement in digitalization, which will boost economic diversification and reduce reliance on the mineral sector.

After a few years of setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mongolian economy has shown a sign of recovery in 2022 despite the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Trade turnover for 2022 increased 32 per cent from that of 2021, helping Mongolia enjoy 4.8 per cent economic growth in 2022.

However, such recovery comes from regaining trade in a specific sector with a particular trading partner - minerals and China. Over 90 per cent of Mongolia’s export items are minerals, while China counts for more than 80 per cent of Mongolia’s total export. This represents a chronically narrow-based Mongolia’s trade structure, making its economy vulnerable to external shocks.

Furthermore, Mongolia, with its geographical disadvantage of being landlocked, suffers from higher costs and a longer time in transportation and trade logistics, moving its goods across borders. Mongolia, suffering from multi-faceted trade challenges, underperforms in the global market despite its huge trade potential.

According to the UN Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation 2021, Mongolia stands far lower than the Asia-Pacific regional as well as global averages in implementation. Mongolia’s trade is the least integrated with the world. While it is a member of WTO, it is a party to merely two regional trade agreements – the Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan and the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA).

Trade and logistics connectivity of Mongolia is significantly constrained. In World Bank’s latest Logistics Performance Index, Mongolia ranked 97th globally. In UNCTAD’s productive capacities index, capacity of a country to produce goods and services and enable it to grow and develop, Mongolia ranked 94th globally.

International trade has been the backbone of Mongolia’s economic growth. Its trade-to-GDP ratio has stood consistently at over 100 per cent. While domestic market expansion is one way of increasing a country’s economic growth, it is not an easy option for Mongolia, as it is a country with a relatively small population spreading over a huge territory.

Given that Mongolia has a limited domestic market base and tremendous natural resources to supply to the global market, trade-led economic growth is an obvious resort for which Mongolia should strive.

In driving trade-led economic development, Mongolia should take a holistic approach of enhancing its capacity in all four dimensions of trade:

Facilitation of streamlined procedures, which reduces trade costs.

Integration which accelerates Mongolia’s access to the global market, thus supporting its third neighbour policy.

Connectivity links its physical and digital networks to the World for an easier flow of its goods and services. and

Promotion helps Mongolia cultivate the export market, attracting investment and diversifying industries.

By taking such a holistic approach, Mongolia can address the challenges and leverage the untapped potential effectively. In strengthening Mongolia’s capacity in four dimensions, five cross-cutting enablers: policy/governance, human and financial resource, infrastructure, digitalization, and cooperation – should be levelled up to narrow capacity gaps and create a virtuous trade eco-system.

Clear policy lays a foundation for creating a trade eco-system while governance ensures its sustainability.

Human and financial resource is an engine for driving implementation of a trade eco-system and keeps it operational.

Infrastructure, both soft and hard, stands as a backbone to ensure a seamless flow of goods and services.

Digitalization streamlines the way we do business and fosters new digital services and businesses.

Cooperation firms up linkage of Mongolia’s trade ecosystem to those of overseas trading partners for market expansion.

Recognized as one of the means of implementation for the SDGs, trade is directly related to supporting one of three strategic priorities of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) Mongolia for 2023 – 2027- green, inclusive, and sustainable growth. As a joint strategic planning framework for collaboration between the United Nations and the Government of Mongolia, the UNSDCF is aligned with the national sustainable development priorities of Mongolia, set in both the New Recovery Policy, a mid-term policy, and Mongolia’s Vision-2050, a long-term development policy.

Trade is an important instrument for realizing two of the New Recovery Policy, recovery of operations of border ports and industrial recovery, as well as goal 4 of the Vision 2050 – becoming a nation with sustainable economic growth.

The United Nations in Mongolia is committed to supporting the Government of Mongolia in narrowing trade development gaps and shaping up its trade ecosystem for sustainable development – an effort of continuously improving trade efficiency while diversifying its export markets and products.

In 2023, the United Nations in Mongolia has already embarked on a series of serious efforts in this front. The Global Digital Dialogue 2023 with a focus on trade and e-Commerce was organized in connection with the launch of the eT Ready report for improving Mongolia’s overall e-Commerce environment and the ICT Expo 2023: Mindgolia for accelerating Mongolia’s transition from mine-centric to mind-driven economy. The World Export Development Forum (WEDF) 2023 will be organized in the last week of June to help cultivate the unrealized export potential. All of them are being done in a close partnership with UN agencies with proven professional expertise and experience in Trade, such as United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and International Trade Centre (ITC), as well as with the leadership of the Government of Mongolia.

The United Nations in Mongolia will stand as a strong partner in Mongolia’s trade development journey, in close coordination and cooperation with all relevant stakeholders and key players, including related United Nations agencies and other Development Partners.

The Power of Siberia-2 (PoS2) gas pipeline has the potential to transform Northeast Asian energy security dynamics, provided Moscow and Beijing agree to its specific terms. With a predicted annual transport capacity of around 50 billion cubic metres of gas, the pipeline’s construction will increase the natural gas supply to China and Asia.

This new source of natural gas will help states diversify their energy portfolios and potentially enable a faster transition away from coal. The pipeline’s construction and maintenance will generate thousands of new jobs across the region and billions of dollars in revenue.

While China is the clear winner from this new source of stable supply at a bargain price, Mongolia will also see socio-economic and strategic benefits. Some observers have cautioned Ulaanbaatar against working with Russia and China on ideological and strategic grounds. But a cost-benefit analysis suggests that Mongolia has far more to gain than to lose from its potential intermediary role in the project.

Economically, Mongolia expects the PoS2 to contribute up to US$1 billion a year in transit fees to the country’s revenue, create employment, facilitate economic diversification and accelerate its energy transition away from coal. All these developments are necessary conditions for Mongolia’s sustainable growth.

Mongolia is a developing economy with an average per capita income of just over US$4500, an underemployment rate of more than 12 per cent and an overdependence on resource extraction. Such an economic windfall will have substantial implications for Mongolia’s development.

On energy, Mongolia’s ability to import natural gas through the PoS2 pipeline will help it transition more rapidly away from coal. Mongolia uses coal for 85 per cent of its energy supply and relies on Soviet-era coal-fired combined heat and power plants (CHPs) to service its main cities.

These outdated coal CHPs create heavy air pollution during the winter and directly impact the quality of life of Mongolia’s urban residents. Children suffer from respiratory illness as a result. While Mongolia must invest in solar and wind power in the long-term, natural gas offers a short- to medium-term means to reduce coal use. It also offers a long-term means to offset intermittency in renewable energy supply.

Environmentally, the PoS2 could have a positive impact on Mongolia’s overall carbon footprint. While environmental groups have criticised Mongolia’s decision to replace one fossil fuel with another, such criticism is misplaced. Natural gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide as coal when burned and produces far fewer harmful pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide and particulate matter.

Just as many Asian economies see the transition away from fossil fuels as an incremental process — one that is predicated on moving from coal to cleaner alternatives — so has the Mongolian government prioritised short-term solutions over a long-term fix. In this respect, Ulaanbaatar has rightfully avoided the issue of letting the perfect get in the way of the good.

These are the fundamental considerations — economic, energy and environmental security — that should and do inform Ulaanbaatar’s decision on participating in the PoS2 project. It is not the geopolitical ‘turn of the screws’ as some analysts have suggested.

One finds little — if any — reference to perceived coercion from Russia and China in Mongolian-language writings on the PoS2. Mongolian analysts largely view the PoS2 as a strategic windfall — one that raises the country’s status within Northeast Asia and with Russia and China.

But Mongolia should still try to mitigate any potential risks associated with the PoS2 project. Ulaanbaatar can work closely with regional organisations like the Asian Development Bank to ensure transparency and accountability throughout the tender and construction processes.

Mongolian leadership can also adhere to international best practices in environmental impact mitigation and take measures to ensure that the country has the proper energy infrastructure in place to benefit from gas imports when the time comes.

Fortunately, Mongolia can use much of the same energy infrastructure for natural gas that it needs for other renewable gaseous fuels. This means that investment in gas infrastructure now will help integrate renewable energy sources into the country’s energy grid later.

Mongolia can also de-risk the PoS2’s potential contribution to strategic vulnerability through a foreign policy predicated on omni-enmeshment and balance of influence. This means maintaining ties with both Russia and China to avoid dependency on either — a strategy Mongolia and other Central Asian states have successfully used for decades.

For states like Japan, South Korea and the United States — all having vested interests in Mongolia’s strategic autonomy — this means furthering cooperation through operations and dialogue designed to bolster a stable regional order.

While these mitigation efforts should alleviate whatever residual concern remains among analysts, they can also be seen as direct benefits of Mongolia’s involvement in the PoS2 project. The more Mongolia integrates itself into Asia’s energy networks, the more it gains in strategic value across the region, such as in the US Seize the Initiative strategy.

Ulaanbaatar should not shy away from such opportunities because of potential downsides. It should instead run towards them.

BY:

Jeffrey Reeves is Practice Lead, Asia, with Onyx Strategic Insights.

A regular meeting of the capital city authorities was held on June 20. In the previous regular meeting, the Mayor gave tasks in 12 areas, and the implementation rate was about 80 percent.

The Office of the Mayor of the Ulaanbaatar is planning to repair and renovate 19,629 square meters of public streets and areas to increase access to sidewalks and bike paths. In this context, the work on 5,220 square meters has been completed and the work on 10,904 square meters has been started. This year, 1905 meters fences were removed from 26 locations, out of the planned 8771 meters long fences in 111 locations. As a result, 5,032 meters of fences were removed in 66 locations, and the implementation rate is 61 percent. It is also planned to vacate 2355 garages in 132 locations. Last week, 117 garages were vacated in five locations, or a total of 1121 garages in 68 locations, and the implementation rate is 48 percent.

In addition, in order to ensure the normal and reliable operation of the final and mid bus stops, and to improve the appearance of the environment, it was ordered to develop and present a proposal for the transferring the maintenance, landscaping, and construction work into public-private partnership. According to this, within the framework of public-private partnership, a selection process was announced to select the companies to be responsible for the maintenance and operation of the final and mid bus stops.

The landscaping of 12 small parks started

General Manager of Ulaanbaatar City and Head of the Office of the Mayor M.Bayaraa said, "I am working as the head of the Sub-committee for landscaping, repair, trade and services of the Naadam Festival. Parking lots planning has been done. Moreover, relevant organizations are executing road repair and maintenance works. These will be completed by July 8."

In addition, in 16 locations of the ger areas, small parks with landscaping and green areas are planned to be established, while landscaping work has started in 12 locations, and preparations are underway in four locations. Landscaping of places where children play and former garbage dumps was highlighted. Moreover, there is a need to establish small parks not only in ger areas but also in residential areas. Therefore, research is being conducted.

Resource: Media and public relations department of the governor’s office of the capital city

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the electric carmaker will be in India "as soon as humanly possible".

His comments followed a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a state visit to the US.

The Indian government said it had invited Mr Musk to explore investment opportunities in electric mobility and the commercial space sector.

Mr Musk said he was "trying to figure out the right timing" to make that happen.

Mr Modi's meeting with Mr Musk, who also owns Twitter, came days after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey accused India of threatening to shut down the platform for not complying with its orders to take down content from the website.

Mr Dorsey's allegations, made in an interview with an independent news show, were strongly denied by the Indian government, which called it "an outright lie".

Mr Musk commented on the episode on Wednesday and said that Twitter didn't have a choice but to obey local governments or "we will get shut down".

"We will do our best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the law," he said.

Mr Musk also called himself a "fan of Mr Modi" and said that India had "more promise than any large country in the world".

"He [Mr Modi] really cares about India because he's pushing us to make significant investments in India, which is something we intend to do. We are just trying to figure out the right timing," he told reporters. "I am confident that Tesla will be in India and will do so as soon as humanly possible."

Tesla has been in talks with Indian bureaucrats and ministers as it looks to enter the domestic market.

Reuters reported last month that Tesla had proposed setting up a factory to build electric vehicles and was also looking at manufacturing EV batteries in the country. "They are very seriously looking at India as a production and innovation base," federal minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar had told the agency in May.

The company's original plans to open base in India were shelved last year after the Indian government insisted Tesla to make cars locally, while the carmaker said it wanted to export to India first so that it could test demand.

Mr Musk said that he also hoped also bring Starlink satellite internet service, operated by his company SpaceX, to India.

"We do not want to jump the gun on an announcement but I think it is quite likely that it will be a significant investment in our relationship with India," he told reporters.

Mr Modi arrived in New York on Tuesday for a three-day state visit which is being seen has a turning point for bilateral relations between India and the US.

He will be given a ceremonial welcome at the White House on Thursday before he holds direct talks with President Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, over 70 US lawmakers wrote to Mr Biden, urging him to raise human rights issues with Mr Modi during his trip. They said they were concerned about growing religious intolerance, press freedoms, and the targeting of civil society groups in India.

A total of 3.6 million heads of livestock died of natural disasters in Mongolia in 2023.

The figure is 19.2 times more than that of 2022.

The country’s National Statistics Office (NSO) made the disclosure on Tuesday.

Goats and sheep accounted for over 86 per cent of the death toll, which is attributed to extreme weather events, such as blizzards and intense dust storms.

There were 71.1 million livestock animals in the country by the end of 2022, according to the NSO.

Animal husbandry is one of the biggest industries of the landlocked Asian country.

Chairman [Gary] Biondo, AmCham members, friends in the digital industry, thank you for joining this Regional Digital Economy Forum and thank you for the invitation to speak to you all today. I also want to extend a special thanks to AmCham’s ICT and Digital Economic Committee and the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications for organizing this important event.

The digital universe encompasses our families, our schools, our jobs, our businesses, our ability to express our politics—in short, every aspect of our lives. We cannot ignore how integrated our lives and our societies have become to technology and the power of digital. As responsible stakeholders, we must also be cognizant of the power of online collaboration, conversation, transactions, and community building, and harness them for the good of society, and for the diffusion of ideas and knowledge.

While I was in Washington, D.C. recently, joining some of your AmCham members on their annual doorknock, we spoke about the potential of Mongolia to cultivate its technology and digital industry to further contribute to Mongolia’s goals of diversifying its economy and strengthening ties with its third neighbors. Something that was raised in numerous conversations over the course of our trip was the assessment of how digital economies transform societies to make them more resilient, open, and transparent. We spoke about how technology creates digital democracies and sadly, digital authoritarianisms. Both use technology and digital tools to advance their policy goals. Both have visions of technology transforming their societies. Digital democracies use technology to make their societies more resilient, open, and transparent – all in the name of maintaining freedom. Digital authoritarianisms, as we have seen in many parts of the world, use technology to control, manipulate, and subvert – all in the name of maintaining order. So, I ask you all this question: Which one does Mongolia want to become? Obviously, that answer is very clear, and it forms the basis of our conversation today.

A government’s interest to protect health and safety, cybersecurity, intellectual property rights, political legitimacy, and financial stability are all legitimate. However, it is the obligation of every democratically elected government, every country that embraces rule of law and open market economy principles, to safeguard personal freedoms – the freedom of speech and thought, the freedom to worship or not worship as one pleases, the freedom to engage in commercial activities. As we are seeing now in many democratic countries, the desire by governments to create a safe digital space and the need to protect fundamental freedoms in that same space are in tension with one another. In order to resolve that tension, governments must be open and find partners with the business community, academia, and NGOs, to strike the right balance between protecting the digital space from harmful and malicious actors and nurturing the digital economy so it becomes an integral part of a country’s overall economic development.

To take advantage of all the possibilities of the digital universe, businesses and governments need to develop policies in consultation with each other in order to nurture digital environments while responsibly securing personal and economic freedoms.

Mongolia finds itself, like the United States and so many other nations, in the initial phases of walking this digital tight rope.

Governments and the public have a right to be protected from overt criminal activities—be they on- or off-line. Mongolia’s laws generally deal with this reasonably well. Political speech and commercial speech, however, are so intertwined that you cannot sacrifice one without compromising the other.

Concerns about potential restrictions of online speech have permeated recent discussions of Mongolia’s developing e-commerce sector. Mongolia and the United Nations, in concert with the ERBD and the Republic of Korea, have begun to address some aspects of these concerns in recent public discussions. Their soon to be released report assessing Mongolia’s e-trade readiness contain policy goals which align with longstanding efforts Mongolia and the United States have jointly pursued.

In digital policy, the United States has been and will remain committed to sharing cyber security knowledge and experience with our public and private sector partners in Mongolia. We have partnered with the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications, prosecutors and judges, and administrators, as well as private sector banking, mining, and technology companies to deliver in-person and online workshops on cyber security laws, regulations, and practices; and to learn how these different actors respond to the challenges they face.

We have brought experts from the U.S. Department of Justice, Carnegie-Mellon’s software engineering institute, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and American nongovernmental organizations to discuss developing human resources; creating and implementing laws and regulations; bringing the public and private sector together to protect our networks from malign actors; and aligning our practices without sacrificing essential freedoms upon which economic innovation and vitality depend.

E-trade also depends upon a digital infrastructure that is secure, interoperable, independent, and resistant to manipulation and disruption. this is a challenge we share with our partners.

Mongolia and the United States are working together to bring infrastructure options not bound by cables or wires to urban and rural Mongolia.

These new digital infrastructures—vast satellite networks, for example—are democratic in nature, offering access to all in the fullest sense; and they will require flexibility in the legal and administrative frameworks if we are to take advantage of their potential.

Human resource potential is also essential to digital development, both politically and commercially. This includes building English language capacity and supporting inclusive participation in the tech sector by all segments of society—so we can leave no one behind.

We conduct a variety of English language teaching and learning activities through methodology training and open access English teaching resources and materials, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

We have brought women from NASA and Silicon Valley here to encourage women in STEM. In September, we will hold a Women in Clean Energy workshop here in Ulaanbaatar.

We will continue working with our local private and public partners in the digital landscape, including cyber security, digital law and regulations, entrepreneurship, and English language training.

If we can harness the power of public and private partnerships. If the government and the private sector see themselves as partners and not competitors, then the digital future looks bright for Mongolia. It can be a country that stands tall among other digital democracies, a model for others in the region to emulate; it can advance the vision that is shared by everyone in this room, of a Mongolia with a robust, diverse economy where investors come in confidence and aspiring young entrepreneurs know their innovation and hard work will be rewarded.

Thank you very much for allowing me to share my thoughts with you, and I look forward to hearing about some of the discussions during this regional forum and discovering new, innovative ways to collaborate.