MONGOLIA-VIETNAM INTER-GOV’T MEETING BEGINS

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The 16th meeting of the Mongolia-Vietnam intergovernmental commission commenced Tuesday in Ulaanbaatar. The meeting focused on issues of intensifying the bilateral cooperation in trade, economy, agriculture, health and education and developing the mutually-beneficial collaboration in other spheres. At the beginning of the meeting, P.Sergelen, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry and head of the intergovernmental commission for Mongolian side, informed about a current socio-economic situation in Mongolia, and then introduced implementation of decisions made by the previous meeting and further measures. The economic growth of Mongolia was 2.4% in 2015, and declined to 1.3% in 2016, he said. “After setting of the new cabinet, the government of Mongolia has started to take measures for overcoming urgent problems in the country’s socio-economy,” Mr Sergelen said. He added that the government has approved a program on reviving the national economy in accordance with the Governmental Action Program and the National Sustainable Development Visions. Regarding the Mongolia-Vietnam cooperation, the Minister said the bilateral trade turnover reached USD 43 million in 2016, of which USD 2.9 million was export to Vietnam, while USD 40.1 million--was import from Vietnam. The sides also touched upon issues on possibilities of exporting deep-frozen goat meat, leather, cashmere, wool products and meat processed by heating technology as well as importing frozen sea foods, clothes and consumer goods. Mr Sergelen underlined an importance of both sides’ Ministries to realize these works. During a visit of the Mongolian Minister of Foreign Affairs to Vietnam, the countries signed a document on supplying meat and meat product to Vietnam. This meeting has created a legal environment to supply each other foods in accordance with an agreement on food hygiene. Thus, the sides talked about a possibility of supplying 200 tons of goat meat to Vietnam and deep-frozen sea products from Vietnam. Mr Sergelen expressed his satisfaction with co-organizing the bilateral intergovernmental commission meeting together with Mr Nguyen Xuan Cuong, the Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and hopes that this meeting will contribute to intensifying the bilateral friendly relations and cooperation. The intergovernmental commission meeting is continuing with sub-meetings. B.Khuder