Parliament Speaker
D.Demberel received Ajay Chhibber, UN Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant
Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, and
told him his visit just a year after the visit of UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon indicated the great importance the UN pays to Mongolia.

“Our government,
Parliament and the people are grateful to the United Nations Development
Program for all its assistance to Mongolia,” Demberel said. He expressed
satisfaction at the successful implementation of the Mongolia-UNDP cooperation program
in 2007-2011, and at the setting up of a working group to draw up the next phase
of the program for 2012-2016.

The Speaker said
Mongolia expects its economy to grow with expansion of mining but poverty and
unemployment remain a problem, and animal husbandry and the manufacturing sector
need to be developed. He hoped the second stage of the cooperation program will
significantly contribute to the development of Mongolia.

Chhibber said Mongolia’s
adherence to democratic principles was an object lesson to many countries. The
UNDP plans to increase its activity here. He noted that the good level of gender
equality in most spheres in Mongolia was not reflected in politics and hoped
the situation would change before long.  He offered the UN’s help in putting
mineral resources into economic circulation and in proper use of the revenue
from them.

Also present at the
meeting were D.Tsogtbaatar, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
D.Davaasambuu, advisor to the Speaker; Ts.Narantungalag, head of the Foreign
Relations and Cooperation Department of the Parliament Office; Ms. Sezin
Sinanoglu, Permanent Representative of the UNDP to Mongolia; Shoka Noda, Assistant
Permanent Representative of the UNDP to Mongolia, and other officials.

After the meeting, Minister
for Environment and Tourism L.Gansukh told reporters that about 80 percent of projects
in environmental and tourism field have been implemented, including those
against desertification, encouraging biological balance and improving civil
participation.