World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Economic Update introduced www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. Weathering Growing Risks, the October 2019 edition of the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, released today, was introduced at the press conference at World Bank Mongolia Office in Ulaanbaatar.

At the press conference, World Bank’s Country Manager for Mongolia Andrei Mikhnev, Senior Economist for Mongolia Jean-Pascal N.Nganou and economist B.Davaadalai gave information and answered to the questions of journalists.

The economic update reads that growth in developing East Asian and Pacific economies is expected to slow from 6.3 percent in 2018 to 5.8 percent in 2019 and to 5.7 and 5.6 percent in 2020 and 2021, respectively, reflecting a broad-based decline in export growth and manufacturing activity.

Weakening global demand, including from China, and heightened uncertainty around ongoing US-China trade tensions has led to a decline in exports and investment growth, testing the resilience of the region, according to Weathering Growing Risks, the October 2019 edition of the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, released today.

In Mongolia, growth momentum has continued in the first half of 2019, as GDP rose to 7.3 percent from 6.8 percent in 2018. This robust performance has largely been supported by a strong coal sector and increased private investment. In addition, improved market confidence following the continuous support from multilateral banks as part of a $5.5 billion multi-donor support package, skillful management of the macroeconomy, especially on the fiscal side, and steady progress on structural reforms contributed to the strong performance. In the near to medium term, the country’s growth outlook remains positive. However, the report cautions of the risks including political uncertainty, commodity price shocks, cross-border bottlenecks, implementation delay mega projects and slower implementation of banking sector reforms.

In the region excluding China, consumption growth remained steady, though slightly lower than the same period last year, supported by monetary and fiscal policies. Growth in the smaller economies of the region, however, remained robust, reflecting country-specific circumstances including steady growth in the tourism, real estate, and extractive sectors.

“As growth slows, so does the rate of poverty reduction,” said Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank Vice President for East Asia and the Pacific. “We now estimate that almost a quarter of the population of developing East Asia and the Pacific lives below the upper-middle-income poverty line of US$5.50 a day. This includes nearly 7 million more people than we projected in April, when regional growth was looking more robust.”

The report makes clear that increasing trade tensions pose a long-term threat to regional growth. While some countries have hoped to benefit from a reconfiguration of the global trade landscape, the inflexibility of global value chains limits the upside for countries in the region in the near term.

“While companies are searching for ways to avoid tariffs, it will be difficult for countries in developing East Asia and the Pacific to replace China’s role in global value chains in the short-term due to inadequate infrastructure and small scales of production,” said Andrew Mason, World Bank Lead Economist for East Asia and the Pacific.

The report warns that downside risks to the region’s growth prospects have intensified. Prolonged trade tensions between China and the United States would continue to hurt investment growth, given high levels of uncertainty. A faster-than-expected slowdown in China, the Euro Area and the United States, as well as a disorderly Brexit, could further weaken the external demand for the region’s exports.

High and rising debt levels in some countries are also putting limits on their abilities to use fiscal and monetary policies to ease the impacts of the slowdown. In addition, any abrupt changes in global financial conditions could translate into higher borrowing costs for the region, dampening credit growth and further weighing on private investment and economic growth in the region.

To weather growing risks, the report recommends that countries with sufficient policy space use fiscal and/or monetary measures to help stimulate their economies, while guarding fiscal and debt sustainability. Countries in the region will also benefit from staying the course on trade openness and by deepening regional trade integration.

The ongoing US-China trade dispute, along with slowing global growth, also increase the need for countries in the region to undertake reforms to improve their productivity and boost growth. This includes regulatory reforms that improve the trade and investment climate to attract investment and facilitate the movement of goods, technology, and know-how.

Source: World Bank

Speaker assigns to improve measures against money laundering and terror financing www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Speaker of the Mongolian Parliament G.Zandanshatar summoned a meeting with corresponding officials concerning the potential risk of Mongolia to come under Grey List of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization to combat Money laundering and Terror financing and gave order to them.

Additional US Government assistance to advance sustainable and inclusive growth in Mongolia www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On October 10, the U.S. government announced the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Finance of Mongolia signed a MNT 17 billion ($6.4 million) expansion of the bilateral agreement to implement new activities in support of good governance; the rule of law; reliable, efficient and affordable energy; and sustainable, private sector-led growth in Mongolia.

All of the NBA's official Chinese partners have suspended ties with the league www.cnn.com

Hong Kong (CNN Business)All of the NBA's official Chinese partners have suspended ties with the league as it grapples with the fallout from a team manager's controversial tweet about Hong Kong.

NBA China lists 11 wholly-owned Chinese companies as its official partners in the country on its website, all of which now say they have halted business with the league, according to a review by CNN Business of company statements and social media posts.
CTrip (CTRP), China's biggest online travel website, said Tuesday that it "dropped all NBA-related tickets and travel products" from its platform. Mengniu Dairy, one of the country's top milk producers, vowed to suspend "all commercial cooperation with the NBA."
Chinese fast-food chain Dicos also said it planned to suspend "all marketing and publicity activities" with the league, while the skin care brand Wzun said it would "terminate all cooperation with the NBA."

The firestorm began over the weekend, when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. His post, which has since been deleted, included an image that read, "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong." The former British colony has been rocked by months of political unrest in a challenge to China.
On Monday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver waded into the fray. He reportedly spoke to Kyodo News, a local news outlet in Japan, and expressed his support for Morey "in terms of his ability to exercise his freedom of expression."
In a statement the next day, Silver said the NBA could not regulate what "players, employees and team owners" say, and that the league was motivated by "far more than growing our business."
"It is inevitable that people around the world — including from America and China — will have different viewpoints over different issues," he said in the statement. "It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences."
That response has sparked outrage in China. Several NBA partners have spoken out defiantly over the last few days, saying China's sovereignty over Hong Kong is non-negotiable and disagreeing with the league's handling of the situation.
There's a lot at stake for the NBA. The Chinese market makes up at least 10% of the league's current revenue, and could reach 20% by 2030.

Changhong Electric, a major home appliance group listed as a partner on NBA China's website, said Monday that it felt "strong indignation to Morey's indifferent attitude and refusal to apologize," while Chinese sportswear giant Anta declared that it "firmly opposes and resists all acts that harm the interests of the motherland."
The other Chinese firms to distance themselves from their official NBA partnerships include: China Mobile subsidiary Migu; food and beverage brand Master Kong; car rental company eHi Car Services; home appliance manufacturer Meiling; and financial firm Xiaoying Technology.
NBA China also lists two partners that are joint ventures between Chinese and international companies on its website. One of those, Dongfeng Nissan, said it would suspend all ties with the league in the country. Dongfeng Nissan is an automaker that is jointly owned by Japan's Nissan (NSANF) and China's Dongfeng Motor Group.
The other joint venture, Manulife Insurance-Sinochem, could not be reached for comment. It is controlled by Manulife, a financial services firm based in Canada.
Other Chinese companies that have sponsored some NBA activities in the past have also vowed to sever relations with the league.
Luckin Coffee (LK), the Shanghai-based beverage chain, said Tuesday that it would "suspend all cooperation," while smartphone maker Vivo said it condemned "the false remarks" made by Morey "as well as NBA's attitude indicating that it's indulging such behavior."
"Vivo has always insisted on the principle that the national interest is above all else and firmly opposes any remark and behavior that constitutes a challenge to the national sovereignty and territorial integrity," the company said in a statement posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Tuesday. "Starting today, Vivo will suspend all cooperation with the NBA."

Other Chinese businesses had already expressed their discontent with the NBA earlier in the week.
Tencent (TCEHY), the NBA's exclusive digital partner in China, said Tuesday that it would no longer live-stream pre-season games in the country after a similar move by CCTV, China's top state broadcaster. Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and Chinese sportswear giant Li Ning also said over the weekend that they would discontinue partnerships with the team.

The decisions have immediate implications. The Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets are set to face off in Shanghai on Thursday, followed by a rematch in Shenzhen on Saturday.
Many social media users in China have been calling for boycotts of the NBA events, and on Wednesday, a man was seen tearing down a billboard advertising the Lakers and Nets game in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Sports Federation canceled an NBA event on Wednesday just hours before players were scheduled to meet with fans. The move came after several Chinese celebrities pulled out of the gathering, and said they would no longer attend the match scheduled on Thursday.
So far, most of the league's international partners in China have stayed silent. Nike (NKE), Adidas (ADDDF) and Under Armour (UA) have not issued statements on the matter, and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
But signs of strain are starting to show up. On Wednesday, Clear, a haircare brand owned by consumer goods giant Unilever (UL), said it would suspend all ties with the NBA in China.

Bears, beware! www.news.mn

Mongolia’s northernmost Selenge Province is allowing members of the public to use guns against bears in self-defense. It’s illegal to hunt bears in Mongolia, but the authorities of the northern province are allowing the use of guns against bears for self defence or protecting another person.

OECD drafts new digital tax rules www.nhk.or.jp

The OECD is proposing new rules that would give governments more power to tax tech giants.

An energy black hole? The dirty truth about bitcoin mining www.rt.com

Bitcoin and crypto miners do consume vast amounts of power, but how much power do they really use, and are they actually a big burden on the grid?
For some crypto buffs, critics who squawk at the vast amounts of energy supposedly consumed by crypto mining and how it contributes to climate change are little more than churlish, pedantic party poopers.

In one camp are the PoW (Proof-of-Work) maximalists who argue that bitcoin is the “most secure public chain” as measured by hashrate, but denying that bitcoin is an energy hog.

In the other camp are crypto apologists (such as CoinShare) who concede that bitcoin and crypto mining are indeed power-hungry processes, but immediately go on the defensive by claiming that most of the energy is derived from renewable sources.

You probably already know where this is going. The long and short of it: bitcoin and crypto mining do consume vast amounts of power, as we shall see shortly.

Securing crypto networks is costly
By necessity, the most secure cryptographic networks such as bitcoin and ethereum are also the most energy intensive since they rely on heavy resource consumption to defend their networks from malicious attackers. PoW projects, like bitcoin, rely on mining to secure their blockchains and require the hashing power to continue even after every coin has been mined. Less resource-intensive networks do not employ such rigorous processes and are, consequently, almost certainly less secure.

Mineable coins belong to the PoW category, of which CoinMarketCap lists a total of 581. These are the main culprits as far as energy guzzling is concerned. Non-mineable coins such as Ripple, EOS, Stellar, Tezos, NEO and NEM are more energy efficient as they don’t require tons of energy to validate transactions and secure the network as their PoW brethren.

And now to the million-dollar question: how much energy does bitcoin and crypto mining suck off our power grids every year?

Figures of sub-10 TWh per year have been thrown about, with this miner placing it at a relatively tame 2.85TWh/year at the lower bound and 6.78TWh/ year at the upper bound, depending on the efficiency of the mining rigs. That was 2.5 years ago, and since then more efficient rigs have hit the market while mining activity has also increased quite dramatically. These two trends have opposite effects on overall costs, so we cannot be sure what data this methodology would yield currently.

A June issue of energy magazine Joule estimated it at 45.1TWh/year, or about 0.2 percent of all global electricity produced, with a carbon footprint at 22.0 to 22.9 MtCO2.

Digiconomist uses the portion of mining revenues spent on electricity costs to estimate power consumption. Using this method, the organization estimates current consumption at 73.1 TWh/year.

Those figures, though, could be highly conservative and the real thing could be in the ballpark of 160TWh/year as per the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, the latest tool of its kind to emerge in the space. That’s about 0.6 percent of global electricity production and enough to power Switzerland for two years with some change. The carbon footprint is ginormous, too--34.7 Mt CO2 per year, comparable to the carbon footprint of Denmark.

It’s worth noting that Cambridge’s estimated consumption of 76.3 TWh/year tallies favorably with Digiconomist’s figure, which works out to ~0.3 percent of global electricity output. These sources were chosen not least because Digiconomist seems to have been validated by Cambridge and possibly won a long-running diatribe against Marc Bevand (publisher of the 2017 estimates) regarding whose methodology is more accurate.

Both Digiconomist and CBECI can also be used for prognostication for future estimates.

Mind you, that’s bitcoin only--not counting power consumption and carbon footprint of altcoins such as bitcoin cash, ethereum, litecoin and monero among others.

Unfortunately, we don’t have much recourse here. Digiconomist only provides bitcoin and ethereum energy consumption estimates while CBECI only does it for bitcoin. According to the firm, ethereum’s energy footprint has declined from an all-time high of 21TWh/year in July 2018 to 7.7 TWh/year currently.

That’s only a tenth of what bitcoin guzzles up.

It’s possible to estimate the energy consumption of other altcoins by checking out their hash rates and making assumptions about the type of mining rigs deployed and their respective efficiencies. However, those figures could be wildly off the mark as we have seen with Bevand’s estimates.

Considering that bitcoin’s dominance has climbed from 50 percent of all cryptocurrency (market cap) over the past year to 67 percent currently, you can bet this is where the vast majority of mining action is taking place. As very rough back-of-napkin math, it’s logical to estimate that bitcoin and ethereum mining account for ~80 percent of crypto mining energy, with other cryptos sharing the rest.

That would place total energy by cryptocurrency mining at ~100TWh/year. Even with more efficient rigs being constantly pressed into action, electricity costs will hover ~60 percent of mining revenue over the long-term according to some estimates, meaning energy consumption by crypto mining will only continue to climb in the foreseeable future. Emerging mining technologies like merged mining, however, could possibly mitigate some of that.

Regarding CoinShare’s bold claim that the bitcoin network sources nearly three quarters of its energy from renewable sources, the actual figure is closer to 28 percent.

Science and technological park of livestock industry to be established www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. At its meeting held on October 9, the Cabinet resolved to establish a national scientific, industrial and technological park of livestock husbandry and to formulate technical and economic feasibility study through public private partnership. The establishment of the park is designed for supporting herders and cooperatives in the livestock industry, increasing their incomes and provide them with jobs.

Infrastructure development works of oil refinery completed www.montsame.mn

Construction works of 27 km branch line to be used for transporting equipment and devices and goods from Sainshand railway station to oil refinery, 17 km long auto road with a heavy load carrying capacity and 110 kWt power transmission line have been completed within scheduled period and handed over to the State Commission on October 8.

CO detectors to be installed in 220 thousand homes of Ger districts in UB www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On October 9, the Cabinet assigned Ulaanbaatar city Mayor S.Amarsaikhan to manage installation work of carbon monoxide detector in 220 thousand Ger district houses in Ulaanbaatar city before November 1. High-quality CO alarm at affordable price will be installed for free the first time. Government’s National Committee on Air Pollution Reduction will fund the required around MNT 6 billion to purchase the detectors.