Delegates at the 13th Annual Investors Conference of the
North America-Mongolia Business Council, which began on Tuesday, did not
discuss the usual issues such as investing capital, exploiting mines and
evaluating business risks. Instead they focused on availability of manpower at
all levels and how other operational requirements can be met. 

Their conclusion, after a detailed study of what Mongolia can offer, is that
the education system here is not up to world standards and that even the
trained labor does not meet market requirements. They are wary of Government
efforts to expand vocational training facilities because, as a delegate said,
these still depend on obsolete Russian equipment and techniques. Mongolian
participants were quick to point out that the reforms in fact cover everything
from training manuals to teaching skills and that all the new  training centers will be equipped with modern
software.

Several foreign-invested projects, such as Oyutolgoi, are arranging for their
own training courses and the results of proper training have been heartening.
The new breed of repairmen or tractor/combine drivers is very different from
their predecessors. A representative of Wagner Asia said their schemes produced
skilled technical workers suited to work anywhere.

We asked the Chief of the Technical Professional Education and Training Agency
of the Government Agency, N.Byambasuren, who used to work  for Wagner Asia what the situation was.

You have asked for investors and the
private sector to share the cost of improved technical and professional
training facilities.  How have they
received the idea?
The 2009 law has a provision that economic entities should earmark a
percentage of their salary budget for training but the percentage has not been
fixed. Training mining and construction professionals costs more and businesses
in these fields have agreed to invest 3% while service professionals such as
hairdressers and cooks need less money to be trained, so companies here will
spend 1%.

How much capital
would be collected from them?

The State Tax Office estimates that 1% of the salary budget of all foreign and
domestic economic entities would be MNT1.8 billion.