PRESIDENT DELIVERS SPEECHES AT ASEM DISCUSSIONS

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia /MONTSAME/ The President Ts.Elbegdorj delivered speeches at discussions with themes "Regional issues" and "Global issues" during the 9th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit on November 5-6 in Vientiane, Laos. The President thanked the Lao side for hosting the meeting and congratulated Bangladesh, Norway and Switzerland on becoming new members of the ASEM. He mentioned the International Monetary Fund's report which says that Mongolia's economic growth reached 17.5 per cent last year, and that maintaining this growth has become a challenge. He underlined that democratic actions have launched in some places of the world after the previous meeting, held in Brussels in 2010, and that some of these movements have succeeded. Then he urged the ASEM countries to deal with an unclear situation in the present global economy and to ensure together the sustainable growth in 2014. He said Mongolia, which became a democratic nation in 20 years, is chairing the Community of Democracies (CoD) that unites some 140 countries, and invited the ASEM countries to participate in the 7th Ministerial Conference of the CoD to run on April 29 the next year in Ulaanbaatar. "Mongolia intends to share its experience in developing the democracy instead of teaching it to others," he emphasized. The President also noted that Mongolia announced its nuclear weapon-free status 20 years ago. A joint statement on Mongolia's status has been signed by the nuclear-weapon states China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and USA, he added. At the "Regional issues" discussion, the leader of Mongolia raised matters such as the Korean peninsula, Myanmar and Syria, and then spoke about activities of Mongolia in frames of the ASEM. B.Khuder