During his recent visit to Dornogobi aimag, First Deputy Prime Minister N.Altankhuyag visited economic entities that had taken loans from the SME Support Fund. He also visited the Professional Training Center of Sainshand where 88 students are being trained as mining professionals under the Oyutolgoi project.

They receive a stipend and their food costs are subsidized but their hostel is crammed and they requested Altankhuyag to build a new hostel. They also enquired about their employment opportunities after graduating from the training. Altankhuyag assured them that those who did well would certainly get jobs according to demands in the market. He promised that the training would expose them to the latest techniques and technology.

The team led by the First Deputy Prime Minister visited Bayan Erel LLC that softens the hard water from the Gobi from 45% to 04%. The company has installed the latest technology from China worth MNT34 million, of which MNT20 million was borrowed from the SME Support Fund in 2010.

The team also visited a dairy farm 15 km from Sainshand that began work with a loan of MNT25 million from the Fund. Its Director said they had plans to expand operations and to sell more milk in Sainshand.

Altankhuyag expressed satisfaction that Government support for SMEs was encouraging citizens to work on their own, instead of relying on allowances.