The BCM monthly meeting on October 27 was marked by some lively discussion. Mr. Layton Croft, who was in the chair, began by announcing a success in the Council’s efforts at advocacy. Secretary General Sharavdorj of Parliament’s  Secretariat has agreed to pass on comments and recommendations coming from BCM on matters of business, industry, and the economy to the concerned Parliamentary Working Groups and, if necessary, to all individual MPs for their study and consideration. This gives the Council a formal and firm platform for dialogue.  Separately BCM met at the invitation of State Secretary D.Tsogtbaatar of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade and has begun to cooperate with this newly enlarged Ministry.

BCM’s annual general meeting the previous Thursday had elected Mr. J. Peter Morrow to resume the BCM chairmanship, but only until January, which had fallen vacant with Mr. Alan V. Fontaine’s departure from Mongolia. Mr. Sumati Luvsandendev continues as Vice Chairman and Mr. Ts.Boldbaatar, Chairman of Newcom, has been inducted into the Board of Directors.

In his report Mr. Jim Dwyer, Executive Director, expressed his happiness that in just its first year BCM membership had expanded to a very healthy 111, the latest two entrants to the fold being the Mongolian Employers Federation (MONEF) and Eagle TV. Most every significant foreign investor in Mongolia is now a member, along with a range of Mongolian companies, the MNMA, 9 embassies and the major international donors. He asked for current members to renew their annual memberships and predicted a number of new members would also join in the coming months.

A welcome innovation at this meeting was letting member organizations share some problems, immediate and general, they faced in the course of doing business here. Speaking for Eznis Airways, Mr. Glenn Pickard, CEO, detailed how a recent indication that the State-owned MIAT airline might return to operating in the domestic sector posed threats to the private airlines. A level playing field was acceptable and desirable but private operators, with their cost-based fare structure, could not hope to compete with a Government airline generous with subsidized fares. He feared that a regulated regimen was making a comeback, setting fuel prices not commensurate with market trends, and disallowing private airlines from determining their own schedules, fare and surcharge structures. If the Government, he wondered, did not “help private operators save on costs, why should it dictate in matters of revenue”? Many in the audience agreed that “the lack of a focused and fair (Government) policy” was detrimental to expansion of business.

Mrs.D.Enkhchimeg, CEO of Petrovis, gave a presentation on how fuel prices are determined in Mongolia. Her company runs the largest fuel supply network in the country, in terms of number of oil depots and petrol pumps, but had little control over fixing prices as it had no choice on where to import from. She explained how Russian companies set their prices and why the Russian Government changed its export tax rates from time to time. Even with 100% prepayment, supply was erratic. In spite of these imponderables, Petrovis, she assured, was determined to maintain “quality and reliability”.

The first Canadian ambassador to be based in Ulaanbaatar, Mrs. Anna Biolik, said the past 35 years of diplomatic relationship between Canada and Mongolia have been marked by regular high-level visits and talks. Apart from development assistance, Canada is the second largest investor here, after China, and is interested not just in mining, but in agriculture, education, and construction. Similarities in climate and population distribution contributed to the growth of this “multi-faceted partnership”, she said and hoped it would grow only deeper and richer.

The Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, Mr. Jin-ho Park, gave a brief resume of the “extensive discussions” Prime Minister S. Bayar had held with Government and industry leaders during his recent visit to Seoul.

State Secretary D.Tsogtbaatar of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade brought in some of the fresh air that he said was blowing along the corridors of power. Realizing that the economy had to be taken out of the doldrums of the past few years, the Government was determined to radically alter “the decision making mode” by adopting “realistic, unsentimental attitudes”. To this end, agencies like FIFTA were being asked not to usurp legislative authority, to modernize, to concentrate on encouraging and aiding investors to “work more freely”, instead of placing bureaucratic hurdles on their way.

Mongolia has a number of “natural disadvantages” but these can, and have to be, overcome. “Artificially created public expectations have been nurtured by sentiment” and this has to be changed now into a pragmatic and realistic mindset. However, the Government “had to be very sensitive” to the possible long-term impact of its policies, as “one wrong move could prove very costly”. 

Assuring investors of all help and consideration from an “open and professional Government that would abide by the law”, he urged them to remember that Mongolia was not mining alone. He singled out agriculture and tourism as the two sectors that needed investment and expertise most.

Audience feedback threw up two interesting ideas. The first was providing incentives to exporters of non-mining products, and the second was to ask BCM member organizations to prepare a list of the skills they would require in the coming years, so that the Government could be lobbied into reviewing its dated vocational training curricula and methodology.