Ulaanbaatar
Health Minister meets Asian Development Bank delegates
PoliticsUlaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On January 24, A.Tsogtsetseg, Minister of Health met with delegates headed by Ayumi Konishi, Director General for East Asian Department at the Asian Development Bank and exchanged views on works to be co-implemented.
Underlining that Mongolia appreciates the contribution of the ADB for the development of Mongolian health sector, Minister A.Tsogtsetseg noted that ADB's project of Development Program of Health Sector has been realized in Mongolia since 1997 and a number of health projects are currently being implemented with grant aid and soft loan of the ADB.
Most recently, the National Blood Center of Mongolia has renovated its office and blood banks were established at the center with the support from ADB. The Government of Mongolia and the Ministry of Health had discussed about ADB's projects to implement in Mongolia 2017-2020 and Mongolia had rendered proposals on two health projects to ADB in December 2016. In this regard, the Health Minister requested the ADB to support on the proposals by Mongolia.
In response, Ayumi Konishi expressed his gratitude to the Health Minister for cooperating with Mongolia in the health sector and said that the ADB is planning to give financing of USD 300 million each year in the next 4 years, half of which will be provided to the health industry of Mongolia. "The ADB has a willingness to cooperate with Mongolia on the delivery of social welfare to target groups and combating air pollution".
Furthermore, he added that Mongolia needs to increase the number of ambulances in the rural areas and expedient distribution is important in optimizing the efficiency of health care.
In turn, A.Tsogtsetseg informed that the Health Ministry of Mongolia is working to estimate and re-distribute the medical equipment in the provincial areas and that ambulances in 60 percent of all soums will be revamped.
