The National Statistics Office (NSO) of Mongolia and the World Bank announced December 30, 2021 their joint official poverty rate estimation for 2020. The two organizations have collaborated on poverty measurement based on household consumption surveys since 2002.

According to the 2020 Household Socio-Economic Survey (HSES), the national official poverty rate in 2020 was 27.8 percent [1], 0.6 percentage points lower than in 2018. This translates to about 903.4 thousand people of Mongolia living in poverty in 2020.

Compared to 2018, the urban poverty rate dropped by 0.7 percentage points to 26.5 percent, while the rural poverty rate fell by 0.3 percentage points to 30.5 percent. Among the poor, 64 percent lived in the urban areas in 2020, with 43 percent living in Ulaanbaatar.

While estimates show that poverty in 2020 was slightly lower than it was in 2018, the COVID-19 pandemic has sharply slowed down the pace of poverty reduction. Simulations indicate that in the absence of the pandemic, poverty in 2020 may have been about 3 percentage points lower, suggesting that poverty reduction stalled as a result of the pandemic. The wide array of COVID-19 relief packages, including top-ups on existing social assistance programs, undoubtedly played a crucial role in preventing a rise in poverty between 2018 and 2020.

Table 1 Poverty headcount rate and number of poor, 2018-2020

[1] The 2020 household welfare and official poverty rate were estimated by a survey-to-survey imputation approach (see Annex)

Annex. The poverty estimation methodology for the 2020 Household Socio-Economic Survey

The Household Socio-Economic Survey (HSES) is the official survey for monitoring household welfare and poverty as well as key socio-economic indicators in Mongolia. The HSES has been implemented biennially since 2012. Official poverty rates have been reported at the national, urban/rural and aimag level, estimated as a share of the population that has consumption below the national poverty line.

In line with international best practices, changes were introduced to the 2020 HSES consumption module to better reflect current consumption patterns. While these changes improve the accuracy of the consumption measured by the 2020 survey, household consumptions over time are no longer comparable. In order to restore comparability of the 2020 household consumptions and poverty rates to previous survey years, the 2020 poverty rate was simulated based on the SWIFT Plus (“Survey of Well-being via Instant and Frequent Tracking”)[2] survey-to-survey imputation approach. In the SWIFT Plus imputation approach, the 2018 HSES is used to model consumption, and this model is applied to the 2020 HSES data to predict consumption and poverty in 2020. In addition, in order to improve the accuracy of estimates at the aimag level, the model was individually developed by each group of aimags (8 urban groups and 6 rural groups) and poverty was estimated at national, urban and rural, and aimag levels. The 2020 poverty estimation was carried out through a close collaboration and technical support from the World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice and SWIFT team.

Going forward, future HSES will adopt the same consumption module as the 2020 survey and a new poverty series will commence with the rebasing of the national poverty line to the 2022 survey. While rebasing is typically done at the same time as revision of a consumption module, it was decided to postpone the exercise to 2022 due to COVID-19 induced disruptions to field work and consumption patterns.

[2] For more details, please refer to Yoshida, N., Munoz, R., Skinner, A., Lee, C., Brataj, M., Durbin, S.W., and Sharma, D. (2015). “Survey of WellBeing via Instant and Frequent Tracking (SWIFT) Data Collection Guidelines.” Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. and a forthcoming technical note for Mongolia 2020 poverty estimation.

Source: World Bank Mongolia

A bipartisan piece of legislation to be introduced in the US Senate on Friday would force defense contractors to stop buying rare earth minerals from China by 2026, Reuters reports.

The bill will also require the use of the Pentagon to create a permanent stockpile of the strategic minerals. It essentially uses the Pentagon’s purchase of billions of dollars-worth of fighter jets, missiles and other weapons as leverage to require contractors to stop using Chinese rare earths and thus support revival of domestic output. Waivers are allowed only in rare situations.

Rare-earth metals – a group of 17 elements that are critical for a wide range of industries from consumer electronics to military hardware – have long been at the center of the US-China trade war. The US used to be the world’s number-one producer of those minerals, but is now heavily dependent on Chinese exports.

The United States currently has only one rare-earths mine and has no capability to process the minerals. Meanwhile, China accounts for around 80% of global rare-earth production and holds the largest reserves.

“Ending American dependence on China for rare earths extraction and processing is critical to building up the US defense and technology sectors,” Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, told Reuters.

He has described China’s evolution into global rare-earths leader as “simply a policy choice that the United States made,” adding that he hoped fresh policies would loosen Beijing's grip.

To build its reserves the Pentagon buys supply in part from China, but the new requirements “should encourage more domestic (rare earths) development in our country,” Cotton explained.

In the past two years, the Pentagon has given grants to companies trying to resume US rare-earth processing and magnet production.

Beijing (CNN Business)People trying to fly from the United States to China may soon be confronted with an unthinkable scenario: Starting next week, there are likely to be no commercial flights bound for the country as Beijing tries to keep coronavirus infections out ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Beginning January 19 and continuing for at least two weeks, all flights from the United States to China have either been canceled or are likely to be suspended because of Chinese aviation regulations, according to CNN Business research of government announcements and published flight schedules. As of Friday, only two flights still appeared eligible to operate for that period, one of them with United Airlines (UAL).

The Beijing Winter Games open on February 4, and participants are mostly taking special flights restricted to people with OIympics credentials as part of a strict bubble that authorities are implementing around the event.

Since June, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has applied a so-called "circuit-breaker" rule to international flights. That rule means that a flight is automatically suspended for two weeks if five or more passengers test positive upon landing in China. If 10 or more passengers test positive, the suspension period increases.

China has defended its "circuit-breaker" regulations as "an important step to reduce the risk of cross-border spread of the epidemic."

"The measures, which are open and fair, apply equally to both Chinese and foreign airlines," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in August. "For airlines that do not meet the conditions to trigger the circuit-breaker, China has never applied relevant measures on them."

From December 24 to January 12, more than a third of the 9,356 international flights scheduled to depart for China — already a fraction of pre-pandemic levels — were canceled, according to data from Umetrip, an app developed by Chinese state-owned aviation industry IT provider TravelSky.

During this period, a growing number of passengers on flights from the United States — operated by both US and Chinese carriers — tested positive upon arrival in China, triggering a wave of cancellations just ahead of the Olympics and the Lunar New Year, the most important holiday in China.

Three US carriers — United (UAL), Delta (DAL) and American Airlines (AAL) — operate 10 flights per week into Shanghai, China's biggest city, where a steady rise of Covid cases among international arrivals has seen local officials under growing pressure to tighten containment measures. The city on Thursday recorded five new locally transmitted cases, all linked to a resident who had recently returned from the United States.

"US airlines are concerned about the implications of a disruption and are continuing to assess the impact to operations," said Airlines for America, a Washington-based trade group that represents major US carriers, in a statement Thursday. "We are in communication with the US and Chinese governments to identify a path forward that minimizes impact to travelers."

CNN Business has sought comment from the US Department of Transportation, which has the authority to suspend the eight weekly US flights operated by four Chinese airlines.

China largely sealed off its borders in March 2020 and has continued to stick to its strict zero-Covid policy. Flights to and from China— the world's second-biggest air travel market after the United States — have been drastically cut back, even as international travel has begun to rebound in other parts of the globe.

Last month, a Delta flight from Seattle to Shanghai turned around midair because of a change in cleaning procedures at the Chinese airport that "significantly extended ground time and are not operationally viable," according to the airline. Chinese officials disputed the account, urging the carrier to "protect customers' legitimate rights."

Russian airlines of Aeroflot has resumed direct regular flights to Ulaanbaatar capital city of Mongolia. The airline will operate flights once a week, according to the schedule.

The company added that the flights will be operated on Boeing 737-800 aircraft in business and economy classes.

The flight from Moscow departed on Fridays at 01:05 a.m. and arrived in Ulaanbaatar at 12:10 a.m. (local time), the return flight will be operated on Saturdays at 07:55 am, arrival in Moscow at 09:55 am.

A top Chinese consumer group has called for a boycott of a KFC meal promotion, saying it encourages food waste.

The China Consumers Association (CCA) says the promotion sent some customers into a buying frenzy.

KFC launched the promotion last week with Pop Mart, a Chinese toy maker known for its mystery boxes.

Customers are able to collect limited edition versions of large-eyed and round-faced Dimoo dolls when buying certain KFC set meals.

KFC "used limited-edition blind box sales to induce and condone consumers' irrational and excessive purchase of meal sets, which goes against public order, good customs and the spirit of the law", the state-affiliated CCA said in a statement.

That led one customer to spend 10,494 yuan (£1,202; $1,649) on more than 100 of the meals in one go to collect the toys, while people also paid others to purchase meals for them, or just threw them away, the statement added.

Yum China, which operates KFC China, and Pop Mart did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the BBC.

In 2020, the Chinese government launched a major campaign against food waste, which was spearheaded by President Xi Jinping.

President Xi called the amount of food wasted as "shocking and distressing".

The "Clean Plate Campaign" came against the backdrop of growing concerns about food security during the pandemic.

The campaign saw online influencers being banned from binge eating on social media platforms, while restaurant-goers were urged to not order more than they could eat.

The Central American country was world’s first to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

The recent slide of the largest crypto, Bitcoin, has not only affected retail and institutional investors but one tiny nation as well – El Salvador – which had embraced the digital asset as a way to boost its impoverished economy.

The country has bought at least 1,391 bitcoins using public funds, according to a Bloomberg report, which estimated the holdings based on the tweets of El Salvador’s Bitcoin-loving president Nayib Bukele. The media calculated that the purchase would have cost El Salvador about $71 million based on an average acquisition price of $51,056 per coin. Assuming the government has held the digital coins, they’re now worth around $61 million, a 14% loss.

Bitcoin’s price has fallen about 40% since reaching its all-time high in November. Last week, the crypto briefly plummeted below $40,000 to its lowest since September, with declines spilling over into the whole cryptocurrency market. On Thursday, Bitcoin was trading at $43,765 per token.

El Salvador’s congress approved the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in June 2021. Later in September, President Bukele announced that his government had purchased its first 400 bitcoin. The nation plans to use multiple renewable-energy sources to power its crypto-mining sites.

Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia recorded 2,279 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bring the national count to 401,761, the country's health ministry said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the viral disease has so far claimed 2,006 lives after three new deaths were reported.

The Asian country confirmed its first imported and local cases of the Omicron variant last week, which indicates the beginning of the fourth wave of pandemic, health authorities said, urging the public to follow all relevant health guidelines.

So far, 66.6 percent of the country's population has received two COVID-19 vaccine doses, while more than 952,901 people aged over 18 have received a third dose.

More than 10,000 Mongolians have taken a fourth dose voluntarily since Friday.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the democratic Constitution of Mongolia.

Mongolia has had four constitutions in its history with each of its discussions held in 1924, 1940, 1960, and 1992 respectively. While the earlier constitutions were revolved around the Marxist ideology, the new 1992 Constitution is considered democratic as it protects the common interest of the citizens of Mongolia without discrimination of social class and ideology. Thus, the day of January 13 came to be marked as Constitution Day each year.

For the new democratic Constitution of Mongolia, discussion took place among over 430 deputies of the People’s Great Khural, and over 50 members of the State Baga Khural over the course of 75 days. A public discussion was also held for the new Constitution, which involved about 75 percent of 1.2 million citizens, the total population of Mongolia at the time, and over 200 thousand suggestions were received on the matter.

The new Constitution of Mongolia established the legal framework for a balanced system for state power, setting the base procedure, rights, and obligations of the State Great Khural (parliament), the institution of the State Head - the President of Mongolia, the Government of Mongolia, and the judiciary.

At the time, as the main contributor to drafting the democratic Constitution, State Honored Lawyer B.Chimed had highlighted that further amendments will be necessary in the future with changes in society. This indeed happened to be the case, which resulted in making amendments to seven articles in the year of 2000. Afterwards, working groups in charge of making further amendments to the Constitution were established seven times throughout the years of 2008-2019 - yet, the bills were not discussed by the parliament.

However, most recently, 62 parliament members presented a bill to amend the Constitution of Mongolia on June 6, 2019. Following the discussions that took place at the parliament’s plenary sessions as well as at meetings of Standing Committees for a total of 105.9 hours, the finalized bill was approved on November 14, 2019. The amendments covered 19 sections and 36 clauses of 70 articles, which made up 28.5 percent of the Constitution. These changes ensured the balance and monitoring of governance, improved the stability of the Government and the responsibility of the Parliament, and were aimed at enhancing independent decision-making at local governing bodies.

Talon Energy Ltd., Perth, has lodged an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study for its proposed Gurvantes XXXV coal seam gas project in the Gobe basin of southern Mongolia with the Mongolian Government.

Talon said that its partner, Mongolian-based Telmen Resources, completed the EIA following a public consultation program in nearby communities conducted during November and December 2021.

Feedback from the process has been positive, the company said.

Talon expects approval for the project from the Mongolian Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism late this month or early February. Once approved, field work, including a multi-well drilling program, will begin in this year’s first quarter.

Talon hopes to provide a gas resource estimate before mid-2022.

The Gurvantes XXXV project covers 8,400 sq km in what the company believes is one of the most prospective coal seam gas basins in the world.

The project is less than 20 km from the Mongolia-China border and about 300 km from an existing gas pipeline network in northern China.