Total COVID-19 cases in Mongolia jump to 30, with 5 recovered www.montsame.mn

At today’s 11 AM daily press briefing of the Ministry of Health, D.Nyamkhuu, Director of the National Center of Communicable Diseases (NCCD) confirmed 13 newly detected cases of COVID-19.

Russian border becomes China's frontline in fight against second virus wave www.reuters.com

SUIFENHE, China (Reuters) - China’s northeastern border with Russia has become a frontline in the fight against a resurgence of the coronavirus epidemic as new daily cases rose to the highest in nearly six weeks - with more than 90% involving people coming from abroad.

Having largely stamped out domestic transmission of the disease, China has been slowly easing curbs on movement as it tries to get its economy back on track, but there are fears that a rise in imported cases could spark a second wave of COVID-19.

A total of 108 new coronavirus cases were reported in mainland China on Sunday, up from 99 a day earlier, marking the highest daily tally since March 5.

Imported cases accounted for a record 98. Half involved Chinese nationals returning from Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, home to the city of Vladivostok, who re-entered China through border crossings in Heilongjiang province.

“Our little town here, we thought it was the safest place,” said a resident of the border city of Suifenhe, who only gave his surname as Zhu.

“Some Chinese citizens - they want to come back, but it’s not very sensible, what are you doing coming here for?”

The border is closed, except to Chinese nationals, and the land route through the city had become one of few options available for people trying to return home after Russia stopped flights to China except for those evacuating people.

Streets in Suifenhe were virtually empty on Sunday evening due to restrictions on movement and gatherings announced last week, when authorities took preventative measures similar to those imposed in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the pandemic ripping round the world first emerged late last year.

The total number of confirmed cases in mainland China stood at 82,160 as of Sunday. At the peak of the first wave of the epidemic on Feb 12 there were over 15,000 new cases, though that was a one-off spike following the deployment of new testing methods.

Though the number of daily infections across China has dropped sharply from that peak, China has seen the daily toll creep higher after hitting a trough on March 12 because of the rise in imported cases.

Chinese cities near the Russian frontier are tightening border controls and imposing stricter quarantines in response.

Suifenhe and Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, are now mandating 28 days of quarantine as well as nucleic acid and antibody tests for all arrivals from abroad.

In Shanghai, authorities found that 60 people who arrived on Aeroflot flight SU208 from Moscow on April 10 have the coronavirus, Zheng Jin, a spokeswoman for the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, told a press conference on Monday.

“Imported cases are still the highest risk in Beijing in the second half of April,” Pang said, adding that nearly 8% of the 40,000 nucleic acid tests carried out in the city since April 1 had been conducted on people who had come from abroad.

China has cut the number of people crossing its borders by 90% and has tried to stop all non-essential journeys, said Liu Haitao, an immigration official, at a separate briefing.

“Our border is long, and apart from the border crossings and passages, there are a large number of mountain passes, paths, ferry crossings and small roads, and the situation is very complicated,” he said.

Residents in Suifenhe said a lot of people had left the city fearing contagion, but others put their trust in authorities’ containment measures.

“I don’t need to worry,” Zhao Wei, another Suifenhe resident, told Reuters. “If there’s a local transmission, I would, but there’s not a single one. They’re all from the border, but they’ve all been sent to quarantine.”

Czech Republic will promote its companies "doing business with Mongolia" interest www.mzv.cz/ulaanbaatar/mn

Foreign Ministry of Czech Republic just recently approved "Czech Business Support" (PROPEA) pilot project in Mongolia in order to specifically promote Czech exporters and investors interest in Mongolian market.

South Korean company to provide database solution to Mobicom www.news.mn

South Korea’s Altibase has signed a contract with MobiCom in order to provide its database solutions to the Mongolian telecommunications giant. The contract was signed in March 2020 with MobiCom in order to adopt Altibase’s 7.0 version for its mobile platform for storing infrequently used data. MobiCom has chosen Altibase because it avoids the need to purchase separate data-retrieval solutions. Altibase offers a high performance, unique database that simply eliminates the common issues associated with commercial retrieval solutions.

Parliament ratifies USD 12 million financing from International Development Association www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On April 10, Parliament discussed and backed a bill on ratifying a financing agreement between Mongolia and International Development Association (IDO), submitted by the cabinet.

17th imported Covid-19 case recorded in Mongolia www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ At today’s daily briefing of the Ministry of Health, Director of the National Center of Communicable Diseases (NCCD) D.Nyamkhuu reported that one of the 20 people who were quarantined at NCCD on April 12, after evacuation from Russia, tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Mongolia to 17.

Mongolia's c.bank cuts benchmark interest rate to 9% from 10% www.reuters.com

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, April 13 (Reuters) - Mongolia’s central bank has cut its benchmark interest rate to 9% from 10% and extended consumer loans by 12 months amid an uncertain environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen 17 cases in the country so far.

Gold program to be realized www.zgm.mn

Officials are preparing to implement the Gold national program following the cabinet’s decision to adopt a bill on providing cheap loans for gold miners and making up required financing resources from external and internal markets. It aims to include specific legal regulations in the law of the central bank. Additionally, the negotiation with Russian banks to implement the program is ongoing with a positive expectation. Implementing the gold program and providing additional funding to gold mining companies will increase the gold reserves and stabilize the tugrik. As of March, the Bank of Mongolia (BoM) purchased a total of 5.3 tons of precious metal. Of these, 3.6 tons were gold and 1.7 tons were silver. BoM purchased the gold at an average price of MNT 150,112 per gram. This is a sharp increase compared to the same period of the previous year. As the central bank reported in February, foreign exchange reserves of Mongolia stands at USD 4.3 billion, growing 21 percent from a year ago.

Number of foreign passengers lessen by 53.5 percent yoy www.zgm.mn

In response to growing fears amid the spread of COVID-19, Mongolia had shut down its borders. During the period, the number of passengers who entered through Mongolia’s border in the first quarter of 2020, has decreased by 53.5 percent year-on-year. In addition, a total of cross-boarding passengers dropped by 56.3 percent to 551,900 in duplicated numbers. In line with the border ban, more than 85.5 percent of passengers were Mongolian and the rest or 14.5 percent were foreign visitors. Travel suspension has been imposed from February 1, since then a total of 6,096 citizens have crossed the border, 30 percent of them have been evacuated by charter flights. Meanwhile, international travelers slipped by 58.7 percent to 184,900 compared to the same period of the previous year. According to the study conducted by the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MNCC), 44 percent of tourist companies have reduced their workforce while 38 percent of them are highly likely to cut their jobs.

Cashmere demand may decrease as tourism shrinks www.zgm.mn

The luxury product industry is on the brink of crisis as the economic outlook started to falter in 2020. The demand for washed and combed cashmere fiber is likely to decrease in Mongolia as the COVID-19 restrictions affect the tourism industry. During the financial crisis in 2009 and 2015-2016, raw cashmere price dropped by 24-25 percent and combed cashmere fiber declined by 30-31 percent respectively. This can be seen in this year, posing risk to the industry. According to research conducted among the cashmere industry, 41 percent of the entities expect the cashmere price to be more than MNT 50,000-70,000 while 18 percent of the participants assume it to be higher than MNT 90,000. However, the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MNCCI) estimates the cashmere wool price to be around MNT 60,000 based on the current situation, which might show the same result as the 2009 financial crisis. MNCC included over 50 cashmere entities in Mongolia. Approximately 24,000 tons of cashmere is been produced around the world a year. Of these, China supplies 50 percent of it or 12,000 tons and Mongolia exports 40 percent or 9,600 tons of cashmere. Last year, Mongolia exported 100 percent of its washed cashmere wool to China, 85 percent of its combed cashmere to Italy, and the rest to the UK and Korea.