For people all over the world, a new year means a new beginning, a time for new emotions, meetings, acquaintances and discoveries. The same can be said about countries — national governments rarely hesitate to use the onset of a new calendar year as an occasion to promote an agenda which they see as in their country’s interests. Mongolia is no exception — its government has named 2024 the Year of Regional Development, a clear witness to Mongolia’s…

Since the third quarter of 2023, the Mongolian public have been shaken by regular media reports of gasoline and diesel shortages in various parts of the country. Furthermore, to lend credence to these reports, a regular succession of publications have appeared stating just how many days’ worth of fuel are left in the country. This trend has become particularly evident since the Russian Federation introduced restrictions on fuel exports in 2023 to stabilize its domestic market. Mongolia receives more than 95% of all its fuel by rail from its northern neighbor, and more than 75% of all of Ulaanbaatar’s fuel imports come from Rosneft…

On December 20, 2023, the second stage of hearings of the Temporary Control Committee established by a special resolution of the State Great Khural of Mongolia to monitor the situation at Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi, the state-owned company operating the largest mineral deposit in the country, began. Following a December 2022 corruption scandal involving a discrepancy between coal export data and figures published by Chinese customs, a special regulation was imposed on Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi, which was renewed in November 2023. This Control Committee was also established…

November-December 2023 were almost unprecedentedly harsh months in Mongolia: most of the country was under a massive layer of snow, the thickness of which reached up to 50-60 centimetres in many regions. At the same time, mid-December was also frosty, with temperatures in some parts of the country dropping to -50 degrees Celsius. In addition to weather threats and challenges traditional for most countries and peoples of the world – such as failures in the work of transport, industrial enterprises, a sharp jump in injuries among the population, hypothermia…

Within the framework of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) held in Dubai, the Russian company Rosatom held a Small Modular Reactors Day. The CEO of Monatom, a Mongolian state-owned company engaged in the promising development of a new industry for Mongolia, took a very active part in the event. During the SMR day, Rosatom representatives familiarized him with the concept of a low-capacity nuclear power plant concept for Mongolia. Following the event, the parties signed a memorandum on the construction…

Certain treasured wishes and memories inevitably visit us again and again, and such recurrent visions can be a painful experience. Such is certainly the case for almost one in two of Mongolia’s people, who are left waiting as the country once again raises the question of building a subway in the city of Ulaanbaatar. The megacity, which has almost tripled in size since the beginning of the 21st century, now houses almost half of the country’s population, accounts for an even greater share…

The emancipation of women and the promotion of gender equality have emerged as major concerns in bilateral and multilateral discussions that Mongolia participates in, as well as in the joint statements made by Mongolian representatives with their counterparts from other countries. Therefore, these subjects were discussed five times on the nation’s primary news portal, Montsame.mn, in the span of just two days…

Mongolia hosted official activities held by the Mongolian government as part of the “Mongolia Transport Week 2023” in early November 2023. Participating in the “week” were the nation’s prime minister, the Speaker of the State Great Khural, the Minister and Vice Minister of Road and Transport Development, representatives of major foreign and Mongolian corporations, the Civil Aviation Authority of Mongolia…

The Mongolian leadership’s unwillingness to express a clear desire to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is often interpreted by various experts as a demonstration of the country’s rejection of expanding partnerships with “non-Western” powers, as well as a peculiar gesture of distrust towards China. No one in Mongolia sees an immediate need for the country’s full SCO membership; the country is already surrounded by the organization’s space…

The 25^th meeting of the Intergovernmental Russian-Mongolian Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation was held on 23 October 2023 in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The meeting was jointly chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation V. Abramchenko and Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development of Mongolia Ch. Khurelbaatar. The main results of the meeting, although not notable for the abundance of new agreements and programmes, were marked by the emergence and return to the field of bilateral…

Mongolia signed a number of international air transport agreements in October 2023. So, on October 17 of this year, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation of Mongolia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and an air service agreement with Vietnam, both of which stated that the parties were willing to give up their airspace to allow free passage for their aircraft. A similar agreement was signed the day before with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic’s aviation authorities. A week earlier, namely on October 10, 2023…

In 1981 Mongolia’s “space pioneer,” the astronaut Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa, made a flight on the Salyut 39 mission. He later became the head of the Russian-Mongolian Friendship Association A great deal has changed in Mongolia since then, not least the political system and the country’s economic and social development priorities. For a long time Mongolia could not afford to dream about having a space program, first because of its struggles to alleviate the acute poverty and other woes caused by “economic liberalization,” and…