H. E. Mr. Sanjaasuren Bayaraa, Ambassador of Mongolia

H. E. Mr. Sanjaasuren Bayaraa, Ambassador of Mongolia
H. E. Mr. Sanjaasuren Bayaraa

Excerpts from Asia News Agency’s interview with H.E. Mr Sanjaasuren Bayaraa, Ambassador of Mongolia

ANA: Excellency, India and Mongolia have had historical and cultural connections for more than 2000 years. How strong and real are these linkages today?

H.E.: That’s true, peoples of two countries adopted close and friendly ties more than two thousand years ago when Buddha’s teachings started to spread in Mongolia. We name this relationship as “spiritual” bonds, and Mongolians are used since long time to call India as the “Country of Buddha”. Moreover, waters of river Ganga that flows from Himalayas are considered in Mongolia as “Holy Water” and worshiped at their home altars.

In modern times, our relations formally started with the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1955. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru played an important role in bringing India and Mongolia together. Prominent leader of people of India had a thorough knowledge about Mongolian history and Chinggis Khaan as we can see from his “Letters from a Father to His Daughter”. Mongolians remember with great respect Jawharlal Nehru’s 1961 speech at the UN General Assembly in support of Mongolia’s accession to the United States.

Today relations between Mongolia and India are prospering in all areas of socio-economic cooperation, including politics, trade and economy, culture and education. Our relations reached new heights in 2009 during the state visit of Mongolian President to India when two countries agreed to upgrade the level of bilateral relations to the “Comprehensive Partnership”. Important steps towards strengthening of parliamentary cooperation as well as overall relations between the two countries was exchange of visits in 2010 by the Chairman of Mongolian State Great Hural (Parliament) Mr.D.Demberel and the Speaker of Lok Sabha Madame Meira Kumar. And most recently, in July 2011 President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil was on a state visit to Mongolia.

ANA: According to the World Bank Quarterly Economic Update, February 2012 GDP growth in Mongolia accelerated to an unprecedented 17.3 percent in 2011 from 6.4 percent in 2010. Could you educate our readers on the background this unprecedented growth story?

H.E.: Last few years were historic for the economic and social development of my country. In October 2009, Mongolia passed milestone legislation on an investment agreement to develop the Oyu Tolgoi mine, considered to be among the world's largest copper deposits. This mine will be fully operational by the end of this year. Government approval is pending for another investment agreement for the world's largest untapped coal deposit Tavan Tolgoi. Owing to construction of huge mining projects and related infrastructure, Mongolian economy is growing fast. The economy grew 6.4% in 2010 and 17.3% in 2011, largely on the strength of imports of mining equipment and machinery and commodity exports to nearby countries.

ANA: Excellency, in the context of India also as one of the emerging countries, how would you assess the present level bilateral relations? Are they satisfactory in your opinion?

H.E.: Two countries enjoy friendly and fruitful relations in many areas. Traditionally strong is cooperation in education, defence and IT. Currently there are about 700 Mongolian students in India. Each year Indian Government provides to Mongolians 200 scholarships in bachelor and master’s degrees and short-time courses. Our students study mainly IT, computer engineering, economics and English language. Number of students who study mining, agriculture, biotechnology and other professions are increasing. There are more than 200 monks studying in South India. More and more Mongolian young people are choosing India as a school destination because of high quality of education that is provided at relatively low cost.

Cooperation between defence and border security forces of two countries reached the level of regular consultations that take place every year. India provides English and computer training for Mongolian army and border security staff at large numbers.

In recent years Indian companies showed huge attention to our market. We see more and more interest from their side to invest in the mining sector of Mongolia. In the past India imported from Mongolia some fluorspar only, but now they want to buy coking coal and iron ore, but also to build processing factories. Big Indian state and private companies such as International Coal Ventures Ltd, Jindal Steel & Power and Mesco Steel are already utilizing potentials for mineral exploration and processing. Last year Steel Authority of India limited (SAIL) signed MoU with Mongolian Government in order to initiate economic feasibility studies in mining and metallurgy. Three years ago India and Mongolia signed an agreement in nuclear energy sector. As we can see mining has great potential in our future relations.

ANA: China is an important neighbour for Mongolia and is its largest trade partner. India is referred to as a “spiritual neighbour”. Does your country see conflicting interests of these two countries coming in the way of developing strategic relations with India?

H.E.: As you know Mongolia has two big neighbours - Russia and China. So the priority in the foreign policy is given to the strengthening of friendly relations with the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. Mongolia enjoys an equal relations with them and develops steady a good-neighbouring cooperation.

I should mention that during the last years our relations with the both of our neighbours have been significantly strengthened and upgraded to the highest level of cooperation. In particular, in 2009 Mongolia and Russia had promulgated their commitment to develop strategic partnership between the two countries. In 2011 Mongolia and China also had announced to upgrade a good-neighbouring, mutually trusted friendly relations to the strategic partnership. China has been the largest investor in Mongolia since 1998 and its largest trading partner since 1999, and it has retained these positions ever since. In 2011, the bilateral trade figure stood at US$3.0 billion with imports from China of US$2.0 billion worth of commodities, which accounted for more than 70 per cent of Mongolian exports. According to official Mongolian statistics, China invested a total of US$3.4 billion in 2011, which represented more than 70 per cent of total foreign investment in Mongolia.

At the same time Mongolia intends to pursue a "third neighbour" policy in order to strengthen country’s national security and to speed up the development of its economy and social life. The "third neighbour" policy is not a geographical term. It's a political and economic term. Also, it is a policy to ensure the national security and progress of Mongolia with an aid and support of not only our two big neighbours but some influential countries of the world and region.

Taking into the consideration all above mentioned factors we can conclude that India as one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies and newly industrialized country as well as our close and friendly partner perfectly might be as a third neighbor of Mongolia. We are happy that Mongolia - India relations are rapidly advancing during the last years.

Currently, Mongolia is establishing a comprehensive partnership with such "third neighbour" countries as the USA, India and Republic of Korea. Shifting from a comprehensive partnership to a strategic partnership of course will take quite a lot of time. But we need to have a concrete goal to upgrade the level of our relationship to this highest one.

ANA: Excellency you are aware of India’s Look East policy. While highlighting the importance of the East Asia region, an analyst points out that “it is not difficult to imagine the East Asia region expanding westward to include more South Asian nations or northward to include Mongolia and Russia.” Clearly, as he visualizes, “it is not history but economic geography and geopolitics that will define the East Asia region in the years to come.” In this context how does your country see India’s role in regional cooperation in North East Asia?

H.E.: I agree with prominent Indian scholar of Central Asia Dr. Sharad K. Soni of JNU when he said that the new role of India in the East Asia will have wide implications for regional cooperation in North East Asia. It is very important to restore and strengthen connectivity, build economic inter-dependence with North East Asian countries for Indian foreign policy.

For Mongolia one of the significant aspects of comprehensive partnership is collaboration of two countries on the international arena. Mongolia and India have had a rich history of cooperation in this field. As I have attributed earlier Mongolian people highly value and appreciate the significant contribution made by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to the admission of Mongolia to the United Nations in 1961.

We are following with great interest the fast development and progress of India and its augmenting influence on the international level.

Mongolia has already expressed its desire to join the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. We are also seeking the opportunity to associate with other forms of integration in the East and Central Asia. We think that India's support is vital for Mongolia to join the process of integration in the region.

India could as well influence the countries of BRICS for the benefit of Mongolia. In this way there are many other issues which might be the subject of cooperation between the two countries on the international arena.
Mongolia’s geopolitical status makes us land-link country between two regions: East Asia and Central Asia. We should use it as effective as possible.

One of the Mongolia's foreign policy activity is the strengthening its position in Asia and securing a constructive participation in the political and economic integration process in the region. Within the framework of this objective, greater attention shall be given to Asia and the Pacific region, in particular to North-East and Central Asia. Mongolia shall take an active part in the process of initiating dialogues and negotiations on the issues of strengthening regional security and creating a collective security mechanism. Prerequisites for participating in regional integration shall be created primarily through expanding and promoting bilateral relations with the countries of the region.

ANA: Excellency, the level of economic and trade relations between the two countries is relatively low. What are the steps being taken to enhance relations in this important area? And could you describe broadly the incentives that are available for Indian companies seeking to invest in your country?

H.E.: The country's economy heavily depends upon external trade. Mongolia has one of the most open and liberal trade and investment regimes in the Asia Pacific region, and is a member of WTO. The Government of Mongolia has been taking an active policy to attract inward foreign direct investment ever since Mongolia has adopted a market economic system and has been persistently conducting a policy that stabilizes the legal environment of foreign investment and provides more favourable conditions for the investment procedures and regulations. Indian companies started to take advantage of this, and as mentioned above, Steel Authority of India limited (SAIL) has signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ministry of Mineral Resource & Energy (MMRE) of the Government of Mongolia on exploring business opportunities in the mining & steel sector. The MoU envisages exploration of opportunities for investments to be made by SAIL either individually or in a consortium with other entities to develop mineral processing/steel manufacturing facility in Mongolia.

ANA: Mongolia is growing market economy with abundant mineral resources, potential for utilizing solar and wind energy, is close to Russia and China and above all has a stable political environment. Excellency, does your country see a role for India in exploiting the huge potential in the region?

H.E.: Mongolia is rich in copper, gold, coal, molybdenum, fluorspar, uranium, tin and tungsten deposits, which has been attracting foreign direct investment. As a result, mineral resources count for a large part of industrial production. Mining has started booming in Mongolia. Although Mongolia is starting to receive an unprecedented flow of mineral-dollars, it has been challenging to manage them for its development. Overall for the next few years due to expanding of mining industry our economic growth will be high possibly for quite long period of time. Growth of mining creates numerous possibilities in infrastructure in Mongolia. For example, we assume that every dollar in mining creates additional demand of $1.84 in other sectors and it includes growth of related hard and soft infrastructure. To develop the country in a sustainable way, one of the possibilities is using of renewable energy. Currently the country uses commercially 16 midscale solar and wind power stations to fuel 100% some towns and cities. Individual farmers use 74,000 solar energy batteries. This year 20,000 more generators will be used in Mongolia to generate at least 5% of total energy production through renewable in the near future. The country is preparing a deployment of large wind power commercial projects near its capital city Ulaanbaatar area.

Establishing the legal environment for economic utilization of strategically vital deposits will embark a great development in our country. This subsequently will open enormous opportunities and rooms for inward investments in the energy, road and urban construction, service trades, light industry, food production and catering services sectors. Moreover, there is an inevitable need for more investments in the intensified husbandry and agri-production sectors. I am deeply confident, that our good friend and partner India will soon have strong presence in Mongolia, since I believe that Indian businessmen and entrepreneurs are becoming one of the best in the world.