Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Speaker of the Mongolian Parliament G.Zandanshatar paid a courtesy call on President of Russia Vladimir Putin, who is paying an official visit to Mongolia on September 3 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Mongolian-Soviet joint victory of the Khalkhiin Gol Battles. 

The Parliament Speaker reconfirmed that the Russian President’s visit to Mongolia and his attendance to the celebration of the Khalkhiin Gol Battles anniversary in person shows the valuable friendship between Mongolia and Russia and its peoples. Expressing his gratitude toward the Mongolian and Russian relations elevated to a new level of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during the visit, Speaker G.Zandanshatar underlined that inter-parliamentary cooperation takes up an important place in the bilateral ties of the two nations and deep collaboration between legislative bodies creates a favorable legal environment, enabling the trade and economic relations to strengthen and the strategic partnership to be enhanced. 

Regarding the trade and economic cooperation of Mongolia and Russia, Speaker G.Zandanshatar informed that the bilateral trade volume increased by 27 percent in 2018 to reach USD 1.8 billion. He then expressed his concern with the trade imbalance, where the exports from Mongolia to Russia take only around 5 percent in spite of the growth of trade volume. Moreover, he put forward a request to the Russian side to finalize the issue of granting RUB 100 billion soft loan to Mongolia to launch the redevelopment project of the infrastructure of the Ulaanbaatar Railways Mongolian-Russian joint venture and modernize technologies of the railways. 

He also proposed to establish a joint working group responsible for studying the work to build natural gas pipes connecting Russia and China in Mongolia and informed that the Parliament of Mongolia solved issued concerning the duty imposed on diesel fuel in order to ensure stable operation of the Ulaanbaatar Railways. 

In turn, President of Russia Vladimir Putin thanked for the Mongolian side for organizing many events to mark the anniversary of the victory of the Khalkhiin Gol Battles. Further, he emphasized that the economic partnership stands among top priorities between the relations of Mongolia and Russia and economic benefits should be considered when implementing any large-scale joint projects. The Russian President also noted that the intergovernmental commission should take consideration of the tackling of the issue of trade imbalance. “Supporting agriculture and mining industries of Mongolia, modernization of the Russia railways and mutually-beneficial humanitarian collaboration are of high level of importance” he added. 

At the end of the meeting, the Parliament Speaker thanked for the Government of Russia and the Russian Rosneft Oil Company for their support for the redevelopment project of the Khalkhgol soum of Mongolia.