Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness Project

Dec

2009

Mongolian glossary of corporate governance terms released

In an effort to help standardize Mongolian terminology of corporate governance and related terms, the Corporate Governance Development Center (CGDC) completed and released an English-Mongolian Corporate Governance Glossary for public use.

Dec

2009

Workshop on mining grievances and conflict resolution held

On 14 December, the Mongolian Employers’ Federation (MONEF) and the Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions (CMTU), with assistance from EPRC, held a one-day workshop on Mining Grievances and Conflict Resolution. The workshop aimed to assist participants in identifying grievances, risks and costs as well as potential mechanisms for conflict resolution.

Dec

2009

Press coverage of energy issues

In November and in collaboration with the Open Society Forum (OSF), the project sponsored publication of an educational newspaper series on energy issues. The series consisted of a weekly article published in two daily newspapers, ‘The Daily News’ and ‘The Century News’ for four consecutive weeks. The series intended to provide the public with basic information and facts about the state of the energy sector to create awareness and build the foundation for an informed public dialogue about issues. Throughout the month of November, almost all newspapers included increased coverage of energy sector problems.

Dec

2009

Tax Department continues implementation of customer service program

Almost seventy General Department of Taxation’s (GDT) staff from UB, Darkhan and several aimags participated in three separate two-day workshops on “Customer Experience Management” that Human Fortis facilitated with project assistance. The workshops were designed to improve the department’s customer service orientation and to promote positive relations with taxpayers. They followed an inception workshop held with GDT management on 27 October and diagnostic observation of GDT’s existing approaches to customer services at various tax offices in UB.

Nov

2009

Customs continues to upgrade its public communications

Inspectors, communication officers and professionals from various departments of the Mongolian Customs General Administration (MCGA) participated in a two-day Public Relations / Public Communications workshop on 26-27 November. The Press Institute (TPI) facilitated the event in collaboration with EPRC.

Nov

2009

MoU signed between the Corporate Governance Development Center and the Mongolian National Mining Association

On 24 November the Corporate Governance Development Center (CGDC) and the Mongolian National Mining Association (MNMA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to help MNMA member mining companies address corporate governance issues through training programs targeting directors and corporate executives. Main commitments and rights of MNMA include:

Nov

2009

Mongolia’s transportation infrastructure issues highlighted at international conference

Mr. Buyantsogt Asralt, Board member of Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies (EASTS) and Technical Secretary of Mongolian Transportation Study Center (MTSC), Mr. Jambaa Khashbat, Associate Professor of the Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST), and Mr. Sandagdorj Otgonbayar, EPRC Policy Analyst, represented Mongolia at the Eighth EASTS Conference and Expo 2009 held in Surabaya, Indonesia, during 16-20 November. B. Asralt and J. Khashbat presented and discussed a paper on the “Current situation of the transportation sector in Mongolia”, S. Otgonbayar presented and discussed two papers; one on “Estimation of indirect effects of export sector on non export sector: the case of Mongolia” and another on “Public Private Financing the Zamyn Uud Logistics Facility.”

Nov

2009

Can Mongolia become a competitive transit corridor?

The Mongolian National TV (MNTV) and UBS TV aired the fourth program of the Hot Topix series six times during the week of Monday 2 November. Produced in collaboration with the Mongolian Railway Authority (MRA), Mongolian Tumur Zum (MTZ) and TransCON LLC, the Transit Mongolia program focused on the constraints to Mongolia’s competitiveness as a transit corridor, including insufficient infrastructure and lack of investment. Introducing facts and figures about the potential of the land transit trade business between China and Europe, the program provided the general public with an understanding of the transit business opportunity that Mongolia might miss entirely.

Oct

2009

Mongolian National University to offer graduate courses on corporate governance

On 30 October 2009 EPRC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Mongolian National University (MNU), School of Economic Studies. The MoU will establish a framework of collaboration between EPRC and MNU’s School of Economic Studies to achieve three main objectives:

Oct

2009

General Department of Taxation revises its mission statement to include “trust of taxpayers, … open, smooth, transparent and fair operations”

On 27 October, at the culmination of the first GDT senior management workshop of the “Customer Experience Management” program being implemented under project sponsorship with assistance from Human Fortis, the twenty-four senior management staff of GDT agreed to re-state their institutional mission as:

Oct

2009

Introduction to the Mine Life Cycle workshop held in South Gobi

On 5-6 October, under sponsorship of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, over one-hundred participants from approximately fifteen soums and five bags from Umnugobi aimag attended a two-day workshop on the Mine Life Cycle, including exploration, development, construction and closure, and the roles of local government, citizens and communities in each of these stages.

Oct

2009

Mongolia’s infrastructure deficit, Public-Private Partnerships and the Concessions Law

Mongolia’s infrastructure deficit. The recently released World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 ranks Mongolia last out of the 133 countries ranked on the quality of overall infrastructure.1 Based on Executive Opinion Surveys conducted in each country, Mongolian executives had ranked their country next to last in the two preceding years.
The same report provides additional details on indicators of quality of infrastructure—the second of twelve “pillars” considered in the Report—as follows:

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