Premier gives lecture to LDP leaders

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Being in Japan with the official visit, the Prime Minister of Mongolia N.Altankhuyag Monday gave a lecture about Mongolia-Japan relations to leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), a current leading party at the parliament. This event is very special for this leading political force because it has invited a foreign high level official to give a lecture for the first ever time. Themed "Economic tendency of Mongolia and Mongolia-Japan ties", the lecture attracted 800 officials such as MPs and members of the government, and delegates of the private sector. The Mongolian PM noted that Mongolia has the 2,200-year history of statehood and has been developing the democracy for the last 20 years, and then gave some economic indicators. Mongolia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased 17.5% in 2011, 12.4% in 2012 and 11.3% by the first half of this year; within one year, the inflation rate decreased twice down to eight percent, an unemployment rate declined by 8% thanks to creating job places, he highlighted. The export revenue increased by 30% in the last half of the previous year, and it is projected that the external trade balance will have a benefit by the year 2014, Mr Altankhuyag said, adding that Mongolia put into use the Oyu Tolgoi copper-and-gold concentrate mine three months ago, launching thus the export of copper concentrate. The mining sector will rise by some 20% when the country starts to export coke coal from the Tavan tolgoi mine, and Mongolia will begin to exploit big deposits from the years to come. Thanks to these works, the Mongolian economy is expected to go up 18-20% in 2015-2016, in other words, the economy will increase 2.6 times by 2016 against 2012, he said. He informed the gathered that the Mongolian parliament intends to discuss bills on investment and on investment fund this autumn in order to make the investment environment more convenient.