Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the first space flight by a Mongolian.

On this day in 1981, Hero of the Mongolian People’s Republic, Hero of the USSR Jugderdemidiin Gurragchaa along with twice Hero of USSR, Hero of Mongolian People’s Republic, Soviet cosmonaut V.A.Dzhanibekov flew into space on the Soyuz 39 spacecraft, landing back on Earth at 7.42 pm on March 30.

With this event, Mongolia became the 10th country in the world to send off a cosmonaut into space, and Mongolian cosmonaut J. Gurragchaa became the 2nd person in Asia, and the 101st person in the world to fly into space.

While in orbit, 36 experiments and research were carried out in the fields of medical care and biology, physics and technology, and remote sensing, which laid out the foundations for the development of space science in Mongolia.

Incidentally, a MONTSAME team of seven, comprised of columnists, reporters, and photographers covered the events related to the flights between 1978 and 1981 and took over 60 percent of all photographs of the space flights in Mongolia, especially those in the archives.

A regular meeting of the capital city authorities was held on March 20. At the beginning of the meeting, the Mayor clarified about the progress of the road, bikeway, sidewalk, and bridge construction.

In 2022, 11 works were launched within the framework of traffic congestion reduction measures. In 2022-2023, there are 36 measures are being implemented with state and capital budget funds. 24 measures have been completed and 12 measures are under implementation. The Mayor reminded that the minimum width of the sidewalk should be 2.7 meters or more.

More than 2,000 people registered to volunteer at the "Ulaanbaatar 2023" East Asian Youth Games

"Ulaanbaatar 2023" East Asian Youth Games will be held in Ulaanbaatar on August 16-23 with 11 sports. Within the framework of the EAYG, more than 30 training courses involving about 1,500 people will be organized and human resources and volunteers of the EAYG will be trained. More than 1,950 people from Mongolia and 120 people from abroad registered to volunteer. The competition will be held in about 10 buildings, the opening is planned to be held at the Central Stadium, and the closing is planned to be held at Sukhbaatar Square. More than 1,500 athletes will participate in the EAYG, and a total of about 2,700 people are expected to come to the competition.

5,076 apartments to be put into use through the redevelopment of ger area in 2023

In 2023, 26 contractors will put 5,076 apartments into use in 10 locations in six districts of the capital city. Last year, 5,900 apartments were put into use as part of redevelopment, which is the highest performance. The Mayor highlighted the need for construction based on sub-centers and the need to increase the housing policy.

Children's playgrounds to be monitored

At the end of the regular meeting, Governor of the capital city and Mayor of Ulaanbaatar D.Sumiyabazar gave the following tasks.

To organize investment implementation and financing activities transparently and promptly in accordance with the Law on Budget, the Austerity Law and related laws and regulations, to improve the coordination of work, and to intensify the monitoring of all stages of the execution of investment work;

To intensify the work of enforcement and implementation of city standards, to promote it to enterprises, organizations and public, to provide the training methods, and to monitor the implementation;

To carry out surveillance studies on the use of residential buildings and the engineering networks, to intensify the passporting of buildings, and to monitor implementation;

To organize monitoring of leisure and children's playgrounds that do not meet the standards in each district, to provide recommendations and notice to owner about the ensuring of standards, and to monitor implementation;

To meet the standards of trade and service centers and external addresses and billboards, and to intensify the work of removing torn, unsightly addresses and billboards placed without permission on public streets and squares.

MEDIA AND PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT OF THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE OF THE CAPITAL CITY

The total turnover of foreign trade reached USD 4.8 billion, an increase of 56.3% or USD 1.7 billion from the same period last year. Of this, exports increased by USD 1.5 billion and imports by USD 0.2 billion.

During this period, Mongolia traded with 107 countries, exported goods to 39 countries, and imported goods from 105 countries.

As for the export, exports have reached USD 3.2 billion since the beginning of 2023, increased by USD 1.5 billion 96.3% from the same period last year. Mining products such as iron ore, coal, copper concentrate, zinc concentrate, fluorspar, molybdenum concentrate, crude oil, and silver ore account for 98.4% of the export of mineral products and 84% of the total export.

As crisis stalks the traditional world of stocks and bonds, bitcoin is suddenly looking like a safe haven.

The infamously volatile cryptocurrency seems positively hale and hearty, just as a banking meltdown drives markets into the arms of a recession.

Bitcoin has risen 21% this month, while a choppy S&P 500 has lost 1.4% and gold has gained 8%.

"If you were going to describe an environment where there were successive bank runs because central banks are trying to fight inflation with fast rate increases, that is pretty close to as spot-on a thesis for owning bitcoin as you've ever heard," said Stéphane Ouellette, CEO at digital asset investment platform FRNT Financial (FRNT.V).

The cryptocurrency has, for now, severed its ties with stocks and bonds and tagged on to a rally in gold, fulfilling at least one part of creator Satoshi Nakamoto's dream - that bitcoin can serve as a refuge for suffering investors.

Bitcoin's 30-day correlation with the S&P 500 (.SPX) has slid to negative 0.12 over the past week, where a measure of 1 indicates the two assets are moving in lock step.

A selloff in banks has wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in market value and forced U.S. regulators to launch emergency measures. The past couple of weeks has seen Silicon Valley Bank and crypto lender Silvergate go under, while Credit Suisse has teetered on the brink.

Let's not carried away, though. This is bitcoin.

"The bearish argument would be that these dynamics are temporary, and ultimately this rally is not going to sustain," said Ouellette.

It remains to be seen if bitcoin's bullishness will endure as attention shifts to the Federal Reserve's policy meeting this week where the U.S. central bank must walk a fine line as it fights inflation and bank stresses.

Furthermore, the cryptocurrency's allure hasn't all been about safety.

The rapid price rise has forced some short-sellers to cut their bets and buy coin back. Data from Coinglass shows traders liquidated $300 million worth of crypto positions on Monday, with most of that total - $178.5 million - short positions.

Nonetheless, bitcoin is resurgent.

It now commands nearly 43% of the total crypto market, its highest share since last June, according to CoinMarketCap data, while the total cryptocurrency market's capitalization has jumped 23% to $1.1 billion since March 10.

"We're seeing a return to bitcoin's core ethos, that of a financial asset independent from the opacity and meddling of the centralized financial system," said Henry Elder, head of decentralized finance (DeFi) at digital asset investment manager Wave Digital Assets.

The mainstream bank crisis has also fueled some interest in DeFi, with the total value of tokens linked to such platforms rising to $49 billion from $43 billion over the past week, according to DappRadar.

BITCOIN IN A BANK CRISIS

Not all areas of the digital world have been immune to the banking fallout, though. The no. 2 stablecoin Circle USD or USDC lost its 1:1 peg to the dollar after disclosing its reserves were parked at the shuttered Silicon Valley Bank.

As worries spread over USDC's ability to maintain its peg, its market cap slid to $36.8 billion last Friday from $43.8 billion a week earlier, even as leading stablecoin Tether gained around $4 billion.

Market participants said some USDC withdrawals were likely reinvested in bitcoin as well, helping fuel the rally.

"It's too soon to say that bitcoin has proven the narrative that it's an alternative in a banking crisis," cautioned Ed Hindi, Chief Investment Officer at Tyr Capital in Geneva.

But he added: "The rally we are currently witnessing in bitcoin will be looked back at as the point in time where its main property as a decentralized non-sovereign asset was stress tested."

Reporting by Medha Singh and Lisa Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Pravin Char

Mongolia has marked the International Day of Forests under the theme of "Healthy Forests -- Healthy People" to enhance public awareness about the importance of forests and trees, the country's Ministry of Environment and Tourism said Tuesday.

Under the auspices of the country's President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, a national conference to discuss the pressing issues in the forestry sector was held here Monday on the occasion of the International Day of Forests, the ministry said in a statement.

"Environmental problems are all interconnected. If we lose trees, we will lose water, air, soil and even life," Minister of Environment and Tourism Bat-Ulzii Bat-Erdene said, urging the country's forestry authorities and citizens to contribute to planting more trees and protecting the environment.

Mongolia has a total land area of 1,564,116 square km, only around 8 percent of which is covered by forests.

About 77 percent of the country's total territory has been affected by desertification and land degradation, according to official data.

Therefore, the Asian country launched a nationwide tree-planting campaign "Billion Trees" initiated by the president in October 2021, which aims to plant at least a billion trees by 2030 to combat desertification.

The country has planted more than 10 million trees across the country since the launch of the tree-planting campaign, according to the ministry.

Mongolia has welcomed a total of 76,068 foreign tourists so far this year, with Russia, China and South Korea being the biggest sources of its tourist arrivals. Around 6,500 British nationals visit Mongolia annually.

The Mongolian government has been taking measures to revive the pandemic-hit tourism sector. Particularly, it has exempted citizens of 34 countries from visa requirements for up to 30 days until the end of 2025.

The country has also classified 2023, 2024 and 2025 as “Years to Visit Mongolia,” and is expected to organize more than 90 events in 2023 to promote tourism. Mongolia has set a goal of welcoming at least 1 million foreign tourists and earning USD 1 billion from tourism in the coming years.

The country received a total of 290,400 foreign tourists in 2022, earning 350 million dollars from the tourism sector.

Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Michele Sison will travel to Madagascar, South Africa, Mauritius, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, March 22-April 7, for meetings with counterparts and UN officials to reinforce U.S. commitment to collaborative multilateral engagement in addressing collective global challenges.

Assistant Secretary Sison will travel to Antananarivo, Madagascar, March 22 before traveling to Johannesburg, South Africa, March 24 and Port Louis, Mauritius, March 27. The Assistant Secretary will then travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, March 29, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, March 31, Hanoi, Vietnam, April 4, Bangkok, Thailand, April 5, and Vientiane, Laos, April 6-7.

While in Bangkok, the Assistant Secretary will meet with officials at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, which serves as the UN’s regional hub promoting regional cooperation and providing technical assistance and capacity-building services in support of national development objectives and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Throughout her travel, the Assistant Secretary will discuss areas of current and potential multilateral cooperation, including in the context of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and tackling transnational challenges, including climate change, food insecurity, and global health security. Assistant Secretary Sison will also advocate for the U.S. candidate for Director General of the International Organization for Migration, Amy Pope.

Partnering with ХасБанк (XacBank) and Тэнгэр Даатгал (Tenger Insurance),BASE is starting the implementation of the Energy Savings Insurance (ESI) in Mongolia. After an initial rollout of the model in Latin America in 2015, its success motivated an expanded rollout in different areas of the world such as Europe, North Africa, and is now arriving in Central Asia.

Mongolia has been experiencing extremely high levels of particulate matter in the air in recent years. From summer to winter, the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, faces from 6 to 14 times higher pollution than considered safe by the World Health Organisation (WHO), with severe health implications for residents, especially children and the elderly. Coal burning as a main source of energy generated by old and inefficient power plants located within the city but also from individual households is mainly responsible for this situation: More than half of Ulaanbaatar’s population lives in traditional dwellings (gers) districts surrounding the city centre, that uses coal-powered simple stoves for heating and cooking. In winter months, the extreme cold weather traps the particles at ground level due to the thermal inversion phenomenon.

Accelerating the deployment of cleaner energy technologies is vital for the region, for the sake of both the environment and public health, and different initiatives tried to create such momentum in this direction between 2010 and 2012. The Law on Air and the Law on Air Pollution Tax were enacted to respectively set emission limits, provide air quality monitoring and start charging fees to different categories of stakeholders for the air pollutants they emit. Building on that, in 2017, the National Program on Reduction of Air and Environment Pollution (NPRAEP) was adopted by the government of Mongolia in an effort to scale up efforts to improve air quality nationwide.

It provides revised and more ambitious targets, additional indicators, and aims to create a policy framework enabling more coordinated action in this sector. At the same time, several organisations partnered with the government with the aim to replace the coal-fired stoves with cleaner ones requiring less polluting fuels, or other technologies such as heat pumps in the case of a pre-feasibility study conducted by the Global Green Growth Institute. Despite these endeavours, Ulaanbaatar remains one of the most polluted capital cities of the world, regularly reaching dangerous levels of particles and topping rankings of worst air quality indexes.

Pollution smog stuck at low altitudes during winter months.

Mainstreaming the usage of energy-efficient appliances can drastically reduce emissions while being relatively low-cost compared to other solutions. Additionally, consuming less energy resources can alleviate the challenges posed by extremely cold weather conditions such as on warm or fresh air generation (e.g: conventional heat pumps greatly lose effectiveness in freezing climates) as well as on storage (e.g: batteries can see their performances and lifespan divided by two in temperatures twenty degrees celsius below zero, affecting the amortisation and profitability). However, energy efficiency faces its own barriers, such as the lack of trust in the actual energy savings more expensive efficient equipment can deliver.

The Energy Savings Insurance (ESI) has potential to overcome such barriers. ESI is an insurance-based model that incentivises micro, small and medium businesses (MSMEs) to choose energy-efficient solutions instead of cheaper, conventional appliances when installing or upgrading an equipment. The model guarantees the energy savings a high-performing system should deliver, reinforcing the trust in the long-term profitability of switching to energy-efficient appliances. XacBank enlisted the consulting services of BASE in November 2021 for a one-year program aimed at effectively implementing the ESI model, tested and proven successful in catalysing the adoption of energy-efficient technologies in other regions of the world, notably Latin America.

Partnering with sustainability leaders

Recognising the urgency to ramp up actions to promote energy efficiency, private sector actors also entered the arena over the past decade. Financial institutions such as ХасБанк (XacBank), started to establish several mechanisms to facilitate and accelerate the uptake of low-carbon technologies, such as loans with lower interest rates for equipment emitting less greenhouse gas (GHG) or hybrid and electric cars. In October 2016, XacBank became the first commercial bank and the first private entity from a developing nation to become an accredited entity by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In that context, it received funding to scale up its efforts to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency in the country. In 2021, XacBank partnered with BASE to identify business opportunities, and define a strategy that would incentivise small businesses to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The ESI model was seen as an option with great potential to achieve these goals.

Daniel Magallon, Managing Director of BASE, and Pablo Oses, Senior Business Developer, introducing the model at the workshop event organized by XacBank at the BlueSky Hotel&Tower. Ulaanbataar’s XacBank headquarters

In the framework of this project, the sustainability experts of URECA have been selected to conduct the technical validations of projects using the model. Originating from Mongolia and based in Singapore, URECA is a climate-tech startup specialising in developing state-of-the-art digital solutions to facilitate and democratise carbon offsetting. Leveraging the latest technologies such as blockchain and AI, the company helps households in unplanned ger districts as well as small businesses to shift to clean energies, improving their energy security and increasing their income by selling carbon credits gained by cutting their emissions. To ensure the transparency and benefits of those activities, URECA carries strict auditing activities and developed a user-friendly measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system tracking transactions and their impacts. As part of the ESI implementation project in Mongolia, the company will harness its expertise in conducting energy performance analysis to act as a third-party validator and certifier of the savings that technology vendors claim to deliver to customers through their more efficient appliances. With its strong skills in digital solutions, the company will also design the management information system that will facilitate interactions between ESI adopters and all stakeholders involved, and consolidate reliable and transparent MRV data.

Kickstarting the model

In February 2023, the BASE team joined partners from XacBank, Tenger Insurance and URECA to present the model to a variety of stakeholders, including clean energy systems providers and government agency representatives. This inauguration marks the end of a long preparation phase reflecting on how to adapt the model so it can overcome local barriers and address country-specific needs. The feasibility study highlighted the potential of this solution aimed at smaller organisations: 90 percent of Mongolia’s companies are MSMEs. The market assessment revealed almost 14,000 of them, 85 percent of which operate in carbon-intensive industries such as mining, manufacturing or textile.

After the introduction of the model, a second follow-up workshop was held which caught the attention of seven major companies belonging to various sectors, including photovoltaics, electric motors, and efficient houses, among others. Possible pilot projects are being discussed with the objective to find reputable technologists, and keen customers to partner with in order to ensure the quality of the project and good initial visibility.

BASE will be accompanying Xacbank and Tenger Insurance partners all along the initial phase of implementation, which seeks to build strong relationships with local providers for the model to prosper in the long run.

Because the public sector has a significant role to play in the energy transition, the team held meetings with key organisations, including UNEP and Energy Regulatory Commission of Mongolia (ERC) in an effort to include the ESI model within the requirements of the government’s public procurement procedures. This would enable the state of Mongolia to use a standard but adaptable solution to promote sustainability and energy efficiency in all public projects, creating a real win-win situation for everyone.