Foreign Ministers of Mongolia and China hold official talks

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia B.Battsetseg, during her visit to the People's Republic of China on July 27, held official talks with State Councilor and Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Wang Yi in Tianjin city. The official talks touched on a wide range of issues on Mongolia-China bilateral relations and regional and international cooperation. Agreeing that political mutual understanding and strengthening of trust enable further growth of cooperation in all possible fields, the two foreign ministers highlighted that the heads of the two states as well as the parliamentarian and government authorities have agreed on many important issues to develop the bilateral ties during their telephone conversations. Ministers Battsetseg and Wang Yi also agreed to carry out the visits by Speaker of Mongolia’s State Great Khural and Prime Minister as soon as the pandemic subsides and organize the meetings for inter-parliamentarian regular mechanism talks and inter-foreign ministry strategic mechanism in proper formats. The meeting also emphasized the active partnership being maintained by the two countries amid the challenging situation posed by COVID-19 as an example of efforts against the pandemic. The ministers agreed to boost their cooperation against the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing a joint statement on strengthening cooperation to fight against the pandemic. The joint statement sets out to take measures against the pandemic, move up the efforts to restore the economic and trade cooperation and increase trade turnover and freight transportation volume by fully utilizing the green channel regime established at the Mongolia-China border checkpoints. The sides further affirmed to intensify the strives to implement their development policies, bring about large scale projects and programs in various fields, such as minerals, energy, agriculture, infrastructure and environment and increase trade turnover to USD 10 billion in the near future. Both ministers pledged to cooperate in increasing traffic flows at bordering checkpoints Zamiin-Uud-Erlian, Gashuunsukhait-Gantsmod and Shiveekhuren-Sekhee with the help of measures against the coronavirus infections, establishing long-term coal purchase contract under commercial terms, increasing Mongolia’s coal exports to China through introducing new types of transportation and expanding Mongolia’s agricultural exports and speed up meat exports from Mongolia’s western region. A regular meeting of the Mongolia-China joint council on mineral resources, energy and infrastructure cooperation was scheduled in the third quarter of this year. Ministers Battsetseg and Wang Yi then concurred that corresponding organizations from the two countries will pay attention on accelerating the projects underway in Mongolia with China’s soft loan and grants and tackling any challenges caused by the pandemic situation. During the meeting, the sides also agreed collaborate on projects aimed at tackling desertification and dust storms as discussed by the presidents of Mongolia and China earlier this month in their telephone conversation and expressed their eagerness to keep cultural, education and humanitarian partnership normal amid the pandemic circumstances. Confirming that both Mongolia and China attach great importance to the development of trilateral cooperation of Mongolia, Russia and China, the sides vowed to provide support to entities from the three countries in order to bring forward the building of trilateral economic corridor and the development of feasibility study for the Russia-China gas pipeline to transit through Mongolia. During the official talks, the Mongolian and Chinese ministers exchanged views on regional and international matters of mutual concern as well and pledged to continue their close and friendly relations.