PM remains: Parliament prioritizes political stability www.zgm.mn

At its plenary session last Friday, the Parliament discussed the bill on ousting the Prime Minister Khurelsukh Ukhnaa and rejected the bill with 40 votes (54.8 percent) from Parliament members (MPs). This could potentially lead to discussion on dismissal of Parliament Speaker Enkhbold Miyegombo as the PM announced to oust Mr. Enkhbold from the party and turned to Constitutional Court over his involvement in alleged MNT 60 billion sell-off case.

“Mongolian Economic Diversification - Role of Business Associations” www.applicatio.com

“Mongolian Economic Diversification - Role of Business Associations”

EBRD Conference on Advocacy, Fundraising and Networking   

The EBRD/EU Project “Building Effective Business Membership Organisations in Mongolia 2017-2019” organises a conference on Advocacy, Fundraising and Networking

Ulaanbaatar/Monday 3 December 2018; The EBRD/EU project “Building Effective Business Membership Organisations in Mongolia 2017-2019”, which currently supports 12 Business Membership Organisations from various sectors, is holding a conference for BMOs, governmental partners, financers and other stakeholders on Advocacy, Fundraising and Networking.  

The conference aims at bringing together business membership organisations from various sectors with partners from the private sector and initiate exchange, networking and cooperation with a special focus on advocacy and fundraising. Both topics are of high importance and interest to BMOs, the private sector and the public administration.

The one-day conference takes place at the Chinggis Khan Hotel on 3 December 3. Special guests are, inter alia, the EU Ambassador to Mongolia, Traian Laurentiu Hristea, the EBRD Head of Resident Office in Mongolia, Irina Kravchenko, as well as representatives of various ministries, local governments and donor organisations. Organised and facilitated by experts of the Consortium APPLICATIO/ICON (APPLICATIO Training & Management GmbH, ICON Institute GmbH) from Germany, the conference is financed by the EBRD with funding from the European Union. Representatives of the supported BMOs are prepared in a special two-day workshop in advance to discuss advocacy and fundraising with the international trainer Mr Dr Thomas Jenisch.

Key-note speeches, panel discussions and interviews include:  “The Importance of Sustainable Business Associations and Their Networking” (Baigalmaa Sanjjav, EBRD), “Crowd Funding – Innovative Fundraising” (Dr Thomas Jenisch), “Sustainability of Business Associations in Mongolia” (panel discussion), “Funding of Smaller-Scale Projects: JICA - Two Step Loan” (Kentaro Hotta, JICA Mongolia Office), “How to Develop a Convincing Project Idea that Attracts Funders” (R. Khos-Erdene, DS-Consultants Co. Ltd.), “Best-Practice Sample: Advocacy - Successful Change of Perspective” (Nasanjargal, D.), “The role of BMOs in Advocacy and the Role of Advocacy for BMO” (Interview), Best Practice Sample: “Successful Advocacy” (Mr N. Bayarsaikhan, Vice President of MNCA).

'I am not a dictator': Mongolian PM survives attempted ousting www.theguardian.com

Mongolia’s prime minister and his cabinet have survived a parliamentary attempt to sack them over a corruption scandal that has implicated high-level politicians in a state fund embezzlement scheme.

International conference on hazardous waste management takes place www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Ministry of Environment and Tourism, the General Agency for Specialized Investigation (GASI) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) jointly organized ‘Hazardous Waste Management in Mongolia- Further Actions’ international conference yesterday, November 28.

Non-performing loans grow 45 percent in one month www.zgm.mn

Bank of Mongolia (BoM) recently reported the results of commercial bank balance sheet data for October 2018. Key highlight from the report was that the balance sheet resulted MNT 200 billion in loss in the first 10 months of this year.

Mongolia restores power in parts of country after massive outage www.news.mn

Mongolian power utility said on Thursday it had started to restore electricity to western parts of the country after country was hit by a massive blackout on 24 November. A snow storm from Siberia hit Mongolia last week causing a massive power blackout across western parts of the country. Three people were injured and 1600 livestock were lost in the storm.

Indian billionaire won't use tax dollars for controversial coal mine in Australia www.cnn.com

New Delhi (CNN Business)One of India's richest men is pushing ahead with a controversial coal mine in Australia, but the project will be scaled back after plans for state subsidies were dropped following huge protests.

What happens when CEOs have too much power www.cnn.com

In recent weeks, we've seen how concentrated power and a lack of diverse perspectives on corporate boards can cause systemic blind spots in organizations and lead them into avoidable crises.
Facebook, for instance, is currently in the crosshairs of regulators, business partners and users after damning reports came to light about its reaction to a drumbeat of bad news. Carlos Ghosn's devastating fall from the upper echelons at Nissan has thrown both the auto maker and its longtime partner Renault into crisis, and has cast doubts on the structure of corporate governance in Japan. And his behavior as an "imperial CEO" led to Jeff Immelt parting ways with GE, heralding a corporate meltdown of epic proportions. These are just some of the most recent and visible examples of how power — particularly absolute power with few checks and balances — can presage a crisis.
Here's how absolute power can lead a company down a self-destructive path:
Shrinks cognitive bandwidth

Practices such as having the same person serve as chairman and CEO, failing to give decision making power to truly independent directors, and selecting directors from the same tired pool of contenders, are all likely to increase the chances that corporate leadership will miss something important in the external environment. By definition, the number of perspectives weighing in on decisions are reduced if the diversity of the people making consequential decisions is limited.
Moreover, research suggests that more homogenous teams (as one finds when only a small group of people — or even a single individual — is in power) perform more poorly when tasks involve imagination, creativity and out-of-the-box problem solving. Precisely because it is harder to come to an agreement on information and its implications, more diverse teams do a better job.
Discourages sharing uncomfortable news
The people most likely to encounter evidence that the world is changing tend not to be comfortably seated in corporate headquarters. They are at what the late businessman Andy Grove long ago called the "edges" of the organization.
It's the person at Facebook who first noticed something strange going on with accounts that could be traced to Russian operatives, only for Facebook's then-security chief to be met by anger from the top of the company when he shared early findings in a conference room deliciously named "only good news," according to The New York Times. It's the whistleblower at Nissan who pointed out that all did not seem well with respect to the car company's books. And they're the external analysts looking at GE's businesses and wondering whether something wasn't "broken" over there, despite corporate management's denials that anything was problematic at all.

Enables self-interested decisions
When power is overconcentrated in a few players, executives have the latitude to take actions that are comfortable for themselves, but not necessarily consistent with the good of the organization or the people in it. While this should be obvious, we still see many examples of how long-term decisions are colored by the outcomes that will reward the most powerful, even if they prove negative in the longer term.
This can take the form of outright criminal behavior, as the allegations against Carlos Ghosn — which he has denied — imply. Or it can take the form of claiming generous retirement payments, stock options and access to company resources, as has apparently happened with Jeff Immelt, who used a spare plane for travel until 2014, according to GE. During his tenure, GE's decisions to buy back its own stock (which has the effect of strengthening the share price) were blamed for contributing to GE's cash problem.

Or it can take the form of prioritizing advertising revenue over the protection of a user's confidential information and strict adherence to the law. According to a complaint filed by the Housing and Urban Development Department, Facebook, for instance, has promised advertisers it won't show housing ads to people in protected classes, such as the disabled who might need certain accessibility, which is considered housing discrimination and actually illegal (and for which the company is being sued — Facebook said it would address HUD's concerns).

Given these obvious drawbacks, why are so many organizations working under governance structures that expose them to these risks? One reason is that good governance, challenging group discussions and quests to find real information, is hard. It takes time and effort to identify and recruit diverse board members. It can feel uncomfortable to insist that the influence of more powerful people be reduced. And bringing women and underrepresented groups into the conversation means the conversation itself is likely to be different. Nonetheless, it's an effort worth making — unless you want your organization to star in the next set of shocking corporate headlines.

Russia’s Rosneft aims for $500bn worth of energy deals with China www.rt.com

Russian energy major Rosneft has a “leading role” to play in ensuring China’s energy security, according to the company’s Chief Executive Igor Sechin.
Speaking at the first Russian-Chinese Energy Forum in Beijing, he said the total volume of Rosneft’s crude shipments to China is expected to exceed 50 million tons this year. “Rosneft is one of the leaders in terms of petrochemical supplies to China,” he said.

Mongolia-Hungary road transport agreement established www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ During the Mongolia-Hungary intergovernmental commission’s meeting held in Budapest, Hungary, an intergovernmental agreement on freight and passenger transportation by road transport was initialed.