Recap

1. Recap of BCM Monthly Meeting – 6 July 2016
The BCM Monthly Meeting (MM) was held on 6 July 2016 with a Panel on “Election Results: Im
pact on economic & business environment” with attendance of over 90 members and invite
d guests.
BCM Executive Director Mergen opened the meeting with BCM report and updates. BCM’s me
mbership currently stands at 232 with 6 new members for the last one month. Mergen admitte
d that BCM staff is doing great job and improving its operation step by step. Notably, he congr
atulated P. Khulangoo, BCM’s Former Working Group Coordinator, for her successful work in l
eading working group activities and wished her luck in pursuing Masters of Public Administrati
on at the University of Singapore. With this change, he introduced new roles within BCM staff,
and illustrated figures of how BCM’s activities, including MMs have improved over the last fe
w months. Lastly, update on past and upcoming events was shown. Highlight of the upcoming
events is Global Green Growth Week 2016 to be organized in 5-9 Sep 2016 in Jeju island, Sout
h Korea. BCM will be taking a delegation for this event. For more information and to register,
please click here or contact Bayarmaa@bcmongolia.org.
The following 3 out of 6 new members were introduced:
1. Orchuulga 24 - Your Translation Agency – founded in 2014, provides the first online
translation service; has over 50 specialized translators; assures quality control with
proofreading and double checking.
2. OSHMI – founded in 2010; provides consultancy service on implementation of ISO
standards, conducts Occupational Health and Safety training, outsourcing and project
management.
3. VETP – non-profit, membership based NGO founded in 2013; supports the knowledge
management and harmonization of development measures in the Mongolian technical
vocational education and training (TVET) sector.
BCM new members of the month

2. BCM Vice Chairman Pete Morrow next moderated the Panel on Election Results with the follo
wing panelists:
1. Cameron McRae, CEO, Tarva Investment & Advisory LLC
2. Jargalsaikhan De Facto, Political & Economic Observer/Columnist
3. Ch. Khashchuluun, Executive Director, National Council for Private Sector Support
4. D. Zorig, Board Member, Mongolia Development Strategy Institute
5. L. Sumati, Director, Sant Maral Foundation
Panelists expressed their views and perspectives on the past election results as follows:
Sumati:
- Election results show how Democratic Party (DP) did best to loose with unpopular
movements over the last few years.
- With Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) taking the majority seat (65), there will be weak
opposition for the next 4 years, and therefore, MPP will be careful in its policy given
the President’s election scheduled in 2017 as it will be elected by MPP.
Khashchuluun:
- Election outcome affected by last minute change in Election Law
- Election battle in Bayankhongor province was key in deciding policy for the next 4
years
- Anti-crisis plan is drafted, we need to see the party platform once its submitted to
Parliament
Jargalsaikan:
- There were 2 tsunamis: (i) when the sales of share of Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi (ETT) was
announced, people swang and DP lost 20-30 seats as people did not like that this deal
was made secretly and was quite for some time.
- 70% of Mongolia’s GDP is in USD debt, borrowed by the Government to be paid by some
path, but nobody has clear cut on this.
- Financing of political parties is still secret
- For UB city Bat-Uul’s office did good work and we should thank him, but of course a lot
needs to be done further; thus, MPP needs to do better.
- Public domain for land should be in place, otherwise there won’t be difference
D. Zorigt:
- Election result was clear on why DP lost; Mongolians got tired of populists and now we
are moving to technocratic governance
- In 2012 indicators to keep the GoM accountable were clear and based on OT and TT
continuation, railway connection, CHP5 progress, construction of power plant in Gobi.
Now indicators have changed and are difficult to say. Large projects are not the
indicators now. Incremental measures needs to be made.
Cameron:
- Will the new government fix past mistakes? DP’s resource nationalism fell down finally
- This Government needs to have good Prime Minister and professional team at the top.
- Mongolia’s reputation has improved with the Saikhanbileg government and investor
confidence started to revive with willingness to come back to Mongolia. Now
improvement in investment environment is required. If bureaucracy persists, it will kill
projects. Therefore, the new government should try to be supportive of new projects
and investors.
- As DP dis-functioned, it is time for them to reflect.
Questions from the audience:

3. Mogi, Cover Mongolia: Is Mongolia moving towards 2 party system? Third parties were sadly de
feated in the election and result shows that running for election independently is tough. Is
it possible to amend the Election Law and Law on Constitution to allow third parties?
Jargalsaikhan agreed that Mongolia is moving towards 2 party system where both of the partie
s needs to be matured. Once political parties mature, people will select third parties.
Khashchuluun: MPP had organizational structure while DP had loose structure with smaller fra
ctions internally. MPP was more organized; if DP will not get organized, it will be challeng
ing for them to be the 2nd
party in the next 12-16 years.
The evening's networking reception was held in the Topaz room with complimentary drinks an
d sausage rolls from Churchill’s.