The new system is expected to work as a “gateway” model when messages on payments are transcoded in accordance with a certain financial system.

According to Izvestia, the parties involved will work on a single platform, without experiencing any difficulties with transactions.

Russia began development of SPFS in 2014 amid Washington’s threats to disconnect the country from SWIFT. The first transaction on the SPFS network involving a non-bank enterprise was made in December 2017.

“We have an opportunity to connect both foreign banks and foreign legal entities to the SPFS. Today, about 400 users are participating in the system. Agreements have already been concluded with eight foreign banks and 34 legal entities,” Alla Bakina, the director of the Bank of Russia’s national payment system, was cited as saying by Vesti.

Bakina explained that traffic through the system has been growing and currently accounts for around 15 percent of all internal traffic, up from 10-11 percent last year.

The EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) countries are currently working with the Bank of Russia on technical options for connecting to the SPFS. Iran, which has officially joined the Russia-led free-trade zone (EAEU) this month also seeks to develop a joint alternative to SWIFT. Last year, SWIFT cut off some Iranian banks from its messaging system.SWIFT is based in Belgium, but its board includes executives from American banks with US federal law allowing the administration to act against banks and regulators across the globe.

Instead of SWIFT, a system that facilitates cross-border payments between 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries worldwide, Moscow and Tehran will use their own domestically developed financial messaging systems to conduct trade.

The airline operates this route 3 times weekly.

TK362 IST1955 – 0920+1ULN 332 135
TK363 IST1050 – 1430IST 332 246

Service operated by A330-300 with operational day changes from 29MAR20. Overall service for Istanbul – Bishkek sector will be revised from 12 to 11 weekly.

The Municipality of Ulaanbaatar City has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to support the implementation of green building standards and certification systems for the new homes.

According to the IFC, a third of Mongolia’s population live in urban ger areas, or settlements of low and middle income households – these districts suffer from poor sanitation, inadequate solid waste management and limited water supply, which pose health and environmental hazards.

These ger areas heavily rely on coal and biofuels for heating and energy, which generate large carbon emissions and worsens air pollution, especially during the winter.

Out of the 10,000 homes, 1,500 will be social housing, 5,500 will be affordable housing and the remaining 3,000 will be sold at the market price.

Arnaud Heckmann, ADB Principal Urban Development Specialist said: “About 850,000 people live in Ulaanbaatar’s ger areas and have poor access to urban services. Our partnership with IFC will help us apply the EDGE [Excellence for Design and Greater Efficiencies] certification system and standard in designing and constructing green, comfortable, and affordable homes for citizens living in ger areas.”

“By implementing the program favorable conditions will be created for investment and manufacturing of non-mining export products. We are working towards it. We also expect that the contribution of agricultural processing industry will be augmented to the total export of Mongolia with increased export income of the sector through increasing types of value added export products and raising competitiveness of goods. Mongolia’s total foreign trade turnover reached USD 12.9 billion last year, of which USD 7 billion was export and USD 5.9 billion was import. Among them, export of ready-made garment and textile products has been upped by 21.7 percent from the previous year, animal-origin products by 6.8 percent and food products by 5.5 percent respectively and it indicates possibilities of increasing export of value added products."

Then the Minister said that the Parliament adopted SME law and the Government defined SME development program, policy and priorities while the MFALI approved a regulation on selecting projects to be provided with long term, soft loans from the SME Development Fund. "Various regulations and coordination were reflected in these policy papers in directions of export promotion. Further, we will pay special attention on supporting small and medium enterprises through non-financial ways, developing specialized export consulting service and creating export-oriented products and services.

The Export Mongolia 2019 Forum is being held under the motto ‘One policy, One window and One prosperity’ targeting to implement programs adopted by the Government, attract foreign investors, expand foreign relations and cooperation in export as well as promote export-oriented products and service at global market.

Being co-organized by government and non-government organizations such as the MFALI, SME Development Fund, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Development Agency, the Council on Mongolian National Brand and Export International Trading Center, the first business forum is running for two days and more than 350 private enterprises and over 1000 delegation of foreign and domestic entities are taking part.

However, the Mongolian Government needs to focus on decreasing budget deficits and cabinet debts, estimating tax revenue accurately and attracting foreign investments when discussing 2020 State Budget. Mongolia will need to act appropriately with the three-year accumulated reserve, in order to avoid foreign exchange market intervention for stabilizing exchange rates.

Technologies such as autonomous rail-cars and increased automation can lower the impact of the industry on the environment as well as raise profit margins, he said, adding that blockchain can be deployed to track if the supply chain met ethical standards.

“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind we will face greater regulation and scrutiny,” Jacques said in a keynote speech marking the beginning of London Metal Exchange (LME) Week in London.

“Society expects more of our industry which in turn brings with it a sea-change in shareholder expectations and more and more questions on our business model.”

Pressure from investors with an environmental, social and governance, or ESG, agenda has forced miners to focus on their climate and community credentials as part of efforts to repair an image tarnished by environmental disasters and overspending.

Rio makes aluminium and produces coal, both of which are high emitters of carbon. The company is collaborating with Apple and Alcoa to slash its carbon footprint by developing ways to make carbon-free aluminium.

“The only way we can truly tackle climate change is through partnerships across the value chain,” said Jacques.

Rio has pledged substantial decarbonisation by 2050 while larger rival BHP said in July it would invest $400 million over five years to reduce emissions.

Rio is also looking into generating battery-grade lithium carbonate from waste rock in California and testing new approaches at its Winu copper project in Australia, he said.

He added that the approach to doing business in a more environmentally-friendly way needs to be “based on a pragmatic kind of sustainability. With profitability at its heart.”

“Only a profitable business can provide sustainable benefits to shareholders, to communities, and governments.”

In August, Rio announced its highest margins in a decade and a record dividend payout, part of an industry-wide recovery from the commodities crash of 2015-16.

The LME, the world’s oldest and largest metals trading hub, has said it could ban metal tainted by child labour, money-laundering and corruption by 2023.

(By Zandi Shabalala; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

Specialists at the Paris-based watchdog consider Mongolia is risking all foreign transactions and investments, slowing down the economy and leading to further uncertainty. In Ulaanbaatar, there is consternation at the decision. Mongolia succeeded in getting out of the grey list in 2014 after taking actions money laundering. Mongolia has worked to address weaknesses in its technical compliance with the FATF’s standards since 2017. Meanwhile, its economy is in recovery following a bailout from the International Monetary Fund in 2017.

Since the completion of its mutual evaluation report (MER) in 2017, Mongolia has made progress on a number of its MER recommended actions to improve technical compliance and effectiveness. Mongolia completed 35 out of 40 technical compliances and seven out of 11 indicates.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

The Mongolian Central Bank or Mongol Bank is aiming to exit from FATF grey list in 2020.

A source close to the Chinese rare earth industry told Reuters that this type of agreement is “wishful thinking” on behalf of North Korea. The source was skeptical about the real level of Chinese interest in the project.

“Investing in North Korea is not safe. Its international reputation is poor and many companies will not necessarily be interested,” the source said.

UN Security Council resolution 2270, adopted shortly after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in 2016, bans the country’s exports of gold, titanium ore, vanadium ore, and rare earth minerals.

Rare earths or rare metals are a group of 17 chemical elements with special characteristics. They are actually not rare, despite their name, but they are difficult to find in desirable concentrations and are hard to process, as the ores often contain naturally occurring radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium.

Metals and alloys that contain them are used in many devices that people use every day, such as computers, DVDs, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, catalytic converters, magnets, and fluorescent lighting.

The escalating US-China trade conflict has raised concerns about the measures each side could end up taking, including Beijing’s option to restrict the export of rare earth metals. This is considered one of Beijing’s nuclear options in its battle with Washington, as China is the world’s top producer of rare earth metals and holds the largest reserves.