PRESIDENT AT APEC MEETING ON "DIALOGUE ON STRENGTHENING CONNECTIVITY PARTNERSHIP"

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The President Ts. Elbegdorj is attending the APEC Third Senior Officials Meeting in Beijing these days. He addressed the APEC Ministerial Meeting on November 8 by his speech themed “Dialogue on Strengthening Connectivity Partnership”. He started by congratulating the government of the People’s Republic of China on a successful organization of the APEC High Officials Meeting. He also thanked the President of the PRC Xi Jinping for inviting him to this Forum. "Mongolia fully supports the APEC’s vision and principles and we have been expressing our interest to cooperate and join the APEC since 1993. Mongolia strives to meet all APEC criteria, and using the APEC members’ practices as benchmark, Mongolia has developed a Plan for Trade and Investment Liberalization. The APEC economies account for about 80 percent of Mongolia’s foreign trade turnover and 70 percent of total foreign direct investment inflows to Mongolia”, he said. Being an Asian country with an intensively growing economy, Mongolia has an enduring aspiration to become a member of APEC, the premier forum for facilitating economic growth, cooperation, trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific, and this goal is one of our foreign policy strategic priorities, he went on. Mr Elbergdorj also noted that Mongolia’s being part of the Asia-Pacific region is not just a geographical, but also a political factor, and said that Mongolia belongs to the international forums and organizations, in particular, to the United Nations and the Asia-Pacific regional groups. “Therefore, our regional agenda is also centered on becoming a dialogue partner of ASEAN and joining the East Asia Summit process” Although, Mongolia is a landlocked country, it has a vested interest in all the "Three Pillars" of APEC work, which will help us develop much closer economic ties with our immediate neighbors and other APEC economies, he said. He noted about Mongolia’s possibility to become the shortest transit line country connecting Asia and Europe, by mentioning Mongolia’s joining the Asian Highway Network signing the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network with members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific "and we are responsible for building roads on AH3, AH32 and AH4 within our territory". Mongolia launched the construction project of a new international airport, which will be commissioned and operational by December 2016. This airport shall make Mongolia an air transit hub between the Europe and Asia, he went on. Mongolia is planning to construct approximately 5,600 km of railway infrastructure in 3 phases and the second phase - the construction of 1,800 km railway has started in 2013, he said. Recalling the official visits of the Heads of State of Russia and China paid to Mongolia, he emphasized the discussion of issues on establishing and developing transit transportation corridors. “This will help Mongolia enhance cooperation with the Asia-Pacific countries in economic, trade, investment, road-transportation, agriculture and tourism sectors.” “Once again, I express Mongolia’s readiness to cooperate and to be involved in the Steppe Road project, which connects Russia and China, with highway, high voltage electrical line, gas and oil pipeline” he said. At the end of his speech, he said that as Mongolia’s economic potentials unfold, the APEC member economies and Mongolia will enjoy greater cooperation venues and platforms in mining, energy and infrastructure.