Mongolian Saiga antelope population reviving? www.news.mn

Recently, there has been great concern about the declining numbers of Mongolian Saiga antelopes. However, there is good news: the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has reported that the population of the animals reached 5074 in January 2020, representing an increase of more than 1000 within a year.

Coronavirus may cripple fuel demand in all of Asia www.rt.com

The coronavirus hasn’t just led to a slowdown in fuel demand in China, it’s also starting to impact the demand for transportation fuels in wider Asia.
Demand for jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel is likely to be suppressed in the coming weeks, potentially prompting Chinese and other Asian refiners to cut refinery rates, analysts say.

The slowdown in China’s fuel consumption is also aggravated by an extended period of public holidays for office workers and multinational corporations—including Google, Apple, McDonalds, and IKEA, to name a few—suspending operations or shutting down offices, stores, and restaurants.

The weaker fuel demand in China is spilling over onto weakening refining margins for processing crude oil into jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel. Therefore, refiners in China—and elsewhere in Asia—are likely to slow down refinery run rates amid depressed demand and an oversupply of fuels, sources who trade, supply, or refine crude oil across Asia told Bloomberg.

If refineries cut throughputs, a secondary victim of the virus outbreak could be crude oil demand in the world’s key oil demand growth driver, Asia.

“Fears of weaker demand have weighed on refinery margins, and continued weakness could see some refineries cut run-rates in China. If we were to see this, it would likely be the independent refiners who are first to cut, given their focus on the domestic market,” ING strategists said on Friday.

China has significantly boosted its fuel export quotas for 2020, but those quotas were handed only to large state-owned enterprises, not to small independent refiners.

The first hit comes to demand for refined products in China and across Asia, but a protracted health crisis with more travel restrictions could have a sizeable impact on China’s economic growth, which has already been weakening due to the US-China trade war.

Weaker growth could spill over to the crude oil demand growth of China—the world’s largest crude oil importer and the main engine of oil demand growth in recent years.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that the outbreak is now a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, but stopped short of advising travel or trade restrictions.

“The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available,” the WHO Emergency Committee said on Thursday, prompting a mini relief rally in oil prices early on Friday.

Yet, overall sentiment in the oil market was decisively bearish for a second consecutive week, despite a massive loss of crude oil supply from Libya.

Analysts are still struggling to quantify the impact of the virus outbreak on the Chinese economy and on oil and fuel demand, and the unknowns are unlikely to clear up over the next few weeks.

According to S&P Global Platts Analytics, oil demand could drop by 200,000 bpd over the next two to three months. This demand erosion would represent around 15 percent of the expected oil demand growth this year. But if the coronavirus turns out to be as deadly as the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was in 2003, then crude oil demand loss could be in the region of 700,000-800,000 bpd—more than 50 percent of the oil demand growth estimate for this year, S&P Global Platts Analytics says.

As per IHS Markit estimates, the potential maximum economic impact of the coronavirus on China’s economy—based on a benchmark using the SARS economic impact in 2003—could be a 1.1-percentage-point reduction in Chinese economic growth from the baseline IHS Markit forecast of 5.8 percent growth this year.

“Mainland China’s impact on the world economy is also much larger now than during the SARS outbreak, meaning the slowdown in Chinese growth may be a significant drag on global growth,” IHS Markit said this week.

Until clearer indications of the virus impact on oil demand emerge, the market will continue to be weighed down by fears of sizeable demand destruction.

“This thing still in the process of rearing its ugly head and that’s why oil is taking this so hard because this could really turn into an acute drop in demand at least for a time,” John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC, told Reuters.

'Vision - 2050', development policy document submitted to the Parliament www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On April 30, 2019, Prime Minister of Mongolia U.Khurelsukh issued an ordinance to establish a working group to evaluate the development stages of Mongolia in the past three decades and formulate an official document, determining the country’s long and midterm development policy.

The working group, headed by Chief of the Cabinet's Secretariat Ch.Oyun-Erdene, involving more than 1500 people, scholars and experts, secretaries of state of 13 government ministries, heads of some agencies, universities and civil society representatives worked on the document for eight months.

The completed “Vision – 2020” was presented to Prime Minster U.Khurelsukh on January 3, 2020 and the cabinet discussed and backed the draft document on January 26.

Today, January 31, Head of the working group Ch.Oyun-Erdene submitted the draft document to Parliament Speaker G.Zandanshatar for having it approved by the parliament.

The Parliament of Mongolia will discuss the draft “Vision - 2050” during its spring session of 2020.

The long term development policy of Mongolia titled “Vision - 2050” has 9 fundamental goals and 50 development targets, which are carefully divided into three groups of actions of 10 years for 2020-2030, 2031-2040, and 2041-2050. Following missions are identified to be achieved, focusing on the vision of “Mongolia becoming a leader with its economic growth and social development and a country that achieved sustainable preservation of its nature, language, territorial integrity and culture”.

1. Shared values of the nation – “Growing as a nation with a deep sense of national identity sharing common values”.

2. Human development - "Bringing Mongolia’s Human Development Index value to 0.9 and to be ranked in the top 10 countries of the World Happiness Index".

3. Life quality and middle class - "Increasing the population share of the middle-income groups sustained by favorable living conditions up to 80 percent by 2050”.

4. Economy - "Stepping over the threshold of developed countries by growing the GDP by 6.1 times and GDP per capita by 3.6 times to USD 15 thousand”.

5. Good governance - "Establishing a good governance with full respect for human rights and justice and zero tolerance for corruption".

6. Green growth - "Promoting environmental sustainability combined with green growth".

7. Peaceful and safe society -"Creating internal and external environment to protect the vital national interests”.

8. Regional development - "Developing in-country regions that have joined regional economic integrations and with sustainable structure of human settlement and competitive qualities".

9. Ulaanbaatar city and satellite cities - "Building people-centered cities with comfortable and environment-friendly living conditions".

Considering all this, emphasis of the long term development policy will be put on creating a nation with common principles and consciousness, improving the systems related to human development, health care, education, family, science, innovation and labor, and fostering middle class growth, engaging in reforms to the social protection and insurance systems, creating an efficient system of affordable housing provision, supporting startup businesses and promoting healthy and active lifestyle.

Owing to the fact that an adequate identification of key economic areas will help paving the way for further growth, creating healthy environment for economy; mining and agriculture driven by balance between extractive and processing industries, as well as manufacturing industry (Heavy and Light and Food industries), energy, transportation and logistics and tourism sectors and creative industry with knowledge-based approaches will be given higher positions.

Moreover, goals to ensure stability of governance, streamline to the distribution of power, and control, and organizational structures of government organizations, to develop e-governance and improve the professional capacity and expertise of civil servants and ethics, to strengthen the civil society-private-public partnership, to reinforce the rule of law and to build governance with no corruption are also incorporated.

The long term policy further encompasses reduction of urban bound migration and population density, implementation of economic policy across the country’s territory arranged into six economic regions, investment in the preservation of national culture, sustainable system of population settlement, inheritance of traditional and natural landscape with a balanced ecosystem achieved to future generations, economic diversification, development of green production and development of capital city Ulaanbaatar and satellite cities.

The full version of the ‘Vision – 2050’ long term policy development policy is made available online to receive comments and suggestions from the public for the document.

Copper price and coronavirus: “Black swan like no other” www.mining.com

The copper price declined again on Monday as markets in China, responsible for more than 50% of the world’s copper consumption, reopened to deep losses after an extended halt to trading due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Qatar, Mongolia hold first round of political consultations in Doha www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

The State of Qatar and the Republic of Mongolia have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to establish political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries.
The first round of political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar and the Republic of Mongolia was held yesterday in Doha.
The Qatari side was chaired by Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H E Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, while the Mongolian side was headed by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, H E Davaasuren Damdinsuren.
During the round of political consultations, the two sides reviewed bilateral relations between the two countries as well as issues of mutual interest.

Good news about the evacuated Mongolian students www.news.mn

Mongolian health officials confirmed that 31 students and a child evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan have tested negative of the coronavirus infection. Officials have isolated all those involved in the evacuation including 15 people from flight crew from the national flag carrier MIAT, engineers, technicians and other professional workers at the National Centre for Communicable Diseases (NCCD). They will remain isolated for 14 days, during which period the coronavirus symptoms will appear if the individual is infected.

MOZO debuts www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On February 2, Bars Motors company launched MOZO, the first automobile produced by Mongolians at the company’s joint automotive assembly plant in Hangzhou, China. MOZO is a Mongolian abbreviation for Mongolyn Oyunlag Zon Olon (Intellectual Mongolian people).

Mongolia to implement business and human rights principles www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Business and Human Rights in Asia: Promoting Responsible Business Practices through Regional Partnership (B+HR Asia), project is being implemented in 2017-2023 by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Chief Adviser and Manager of the project Livio Sarandrea worked in Mongolia on January 28-31 and got acquainted with the process of developing a National Action Plan and provided methodological advice. He met and exchanged views with the officials of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and non-governmental organizations including national plan development working group, business representatives and trade unions.

China urges coal miners to resume production to keep market supplied www.mining.com

China National Energy Administration on Saturday urged coal miners to resume production to keep the market supplied and stabilize prices amid the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 250 people and infected over 10,000.

Mongolia bars entry of Taiwanese football team to combat virus www.focustaiwan.tw

Taipei, Feb. 2 (CNA) A Taiwanese football team that was set to visit Mongolia to play in an AFC Cup match has been barred from entering Ulaanbaatar as part of that country's new restrictions to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).