The HU is scheduled to perform at the ‘Coachella’ music and art festival in California. They will be the first Mongolian band to perform at the one of the world’s biggest music festivals. But is it surprising? The HU is already fast becoming a rock legend!

The popular music festival, which is annually held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, will be taking place across two weekends: April 10-12th, and the 17-19th. The festival is known for being filled with nonstop music, celebrities, and bold fashion statements.

The festival brings together the best music representatives from all over the world and Asian artists including Bigbang, and Rich Brian Epik High will participate in the festival alongside The HU.

With more than 60 million livestock and wide pasturelands, the Mongolian agriculture and livestock sectors have huge potential to drive economic diversification and as a key source of broad-based employment.

However, major challenges such as low productivity, animal health issues, and vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather events, limit the sector’s potential. About 56 percent of Mongolia’s herders own 200 head or fewer of livestock and are trapped in a low-input, low-output, low-productivity cycle. Animal disease, coupled with poor food hygiene and inadequate nutrition, limit the output and quality of meat and dairy products. As a result, Mongolian meat exports have stagnated at less than 10 percent of their potential despite the country’s proximity to the region’s largest markets for meat imports.

“Livestock productivity holds the key to boosting the sector’s competitiveness. Improving animal health and livestock productivity by commercializing the value chain will enable greater economic diversification and contribute to broad-based employment and income growth in rural areas and at the same time improve food security and food safety,” said Andrei Mikhnev, World Bank Country Manager for Mongolia.

The new project aims to improve the quality of and access to veterinary services nationally and help establish transboundary animal disease free zones. The project will help improve performance of the Mongolian Veterinary Services Authority to effectively control animal diseases, promote responsible use of antimicrobials, provide veterinary public health services, and improve food safety in line with international standards.

In addition, the project will improve livestock productivity and increase the volume of livestock products that meet market requirements by promoting partnerships between producers and processors. Collaborative research with academic and research institutions, as well as investments to improve animal breeding and nutrition services, will also contribute to this goal. Moreover, the project will provide immediate response in the event of an eligible crisis or emergency.

The 5-year project will be implemented by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Light Industry of Mongolia.

The REX system:

Concerns certification of origin of goods that applies in the Generalised System of Preference (GSP) of the European Union since 1 January 2017
Is based on a principle of self-certification by economic operators that will complete themselves “statements on origin”
To be entitled to complete a statement on origin, an economic operator must be registered in a database by the appropriate competent authorities. With this, the economic operator can become a "registered exporter.” Progressively, the REX system will also be applied in the context of bilateral trade agreements between the EU and partner countries.

Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi will be responsible for the source of fund for the plant’s construction facilities, infrastructure, machinery and equipment. The construction is to commence in March 2020 and first part of the plant will be launched by June.

It is expected that the plant will be operating at full capacity by August 15 and a total of 300 thousand refined coal briquettes will be made within this year.

Out of the 421.1 thousand pensioners that are currently receiving pensions, 229.4 thousand pensioners (54.5 percent) have taken loans worth MNT 763.3 billion in total. It is considered that elderly people who have no earning except their pensions receive pension loan and pay loan interest; thus they are likely to easily suffer poverty. For the reason of their incapability to meet their daily necessities, the seniors get loan again and have no way of getting out of the loan debt. It leads them to the ‘circle of debt’ and undergo financial and psychological pressure.

The repayment of the remainders of the pension loans is planned to be resolved by means of issuing bonds by putting the expected profit from Mongolian government’s share at Salkhit deposit as collateral.

Salkhit deposit has an identified reserve of 808.3 tons of silver and 1117.1 kg gold that are estimated to have a net profit of MNT1050.4 billion. Further, pension loan issuance is intended to be completely stopped.

Going along with the seasonal fluctuations, MIAT Company has reduced its main tariffs by 7 percent and seasonal flights prices by 37 percent, as reported by the Mongolian Ministry of Road and Transport Development. “The Company is taking a series of measures to lower its prices further down”.

One of the busiest flight routes is between Mongolia and South Korea and as of today, MIAT Company is performing direct flights in route of Ulaanbaatar-Seoul and Ulaanbaatar-Busan, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines between Ulaanbaatar-Seoul and Air Busan between Busan-Ulaanbaatar. Moreover, domestic air carrier Eznis Airways is planning to operate direct flight to Busan starting March 2020.

According to the Ministry of Road and Transport Development, the total number of passengers in international routes on the Mongolian air transport market reached 1 million and around 400 thousand in domestic routes in 2019. Among them, MIAT company alone carried around 700 thousand passengers.

Last year, the Specialized Inspection Department and Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry conducted examinations on alcoholic beverage factories in Mongolia and found several violations in operations of the 14 factories, who failed to comply with the notice issued by the Specialized Inspection Department within a certain amount of time.

Therefore, the corresponding government organizations had submitted their proposal to cancel their licenses to the Cabinet.

Parallel with this, some other police units; namely, the Railway Police, the Airport Police and the Traffic Police have been united under a new Transport Police Department.

Ts.Nyamdorj, Minister of Justice noted that ‘number of crimes have decreased by 10 percent in the last 2-3 years. “When I appointed as Justice Minister, the number of crimes were 67 percent!”.

- Erdenet Mining Corporation (EMC) paid MNT 936 billion to state budgets, hitting record high in its history of four decades. The company also saved MNT 54 billion from its tendering and procurement activities. In 2016, EMC paid MNT 184 billion to the state budget. On March 21, 2019, the EMC was transferred to the full ownership of the Mongolian Government.

- Sales revenue of Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC reached USD 1 billion or MNT 2.7 trillion in 2019, making the highest revenue in Mongolia last year. The company has completed repayment of a total of USD 680 million of debts due to Aluminum Corporation of China Limited CHALCO and other companies since 2010. Only in 2018, the Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC generated MNT 720 billion to the state budget.

- National flag carrier Mongolian Airlines MIAT conducted the most number of flights to various international destinations. It performed 2590 flights with 18200 total hours in 12 international and one domestic routes. The total passengers of MIAT for 2019 reached 785 thousand. Total revenue of MIAT reached MNT 484.3 billion and its profits amounted to MNT 30.8 billion.