I welcome H.E. Mr. Nambaryn Enkhbayar, Chairman of the State Great Hural of Mongolia, and his colleagues to the meeting. We will first hear a presentation from Mr. Enkhbayar following which members may ask questions. I understand the delegation met the Ceann Comhairle, the Cathaoirleach and Senator Hanafin earlier this morning.
Visit of Mongolian Parliamentary Delegation: Presentation.
H.E. Mr. Nambaryn Enkhbayar
Good morning, we are delighted to be here. We are in Ireland to attend the international conference of religious and faith leaders. It concerns development issues, especially in developing countries.
I am accompanied by our Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Ulaan; our ambassador to Ireland, Mr. Davaasambuu; the head of the foreign relations department of the Parliament, Mr. Choidorj; a counsellor from our embassy in London, Mr.Jargalsaikhan, and our honorary counsel in Ireland, Mr. Ernest Crossan.
We are very glad to be here. Taking advantage of being in Dublin, we have had several meetings with Ministers and Members of the Dáil and Seanad.
Mongolia established diplomatic relations with Ireland in 1998. We think it is time for us to make our relations more active, especially in the fields of economic co-operation, trade, education, ICT, agriculture and tourism. We discussed these ideas with the Government Chief Whip yesterday and are very interested in discussing them with the committee.
Mongolia started all the reforms in 1990. There were simultaneous changes in introducing a democratic form of government and in the economic sphere. We are actively working to make the transition towards a market oriented economy.
In the 15 years since all these reforms started, there have been difficulties, achievements and mistakes. Although there have been many difficulties, we are proud to be one of the actively changing young vibrant democratic societies in that part of the world known as either central Asia or north-east Asia.
In recent years the Mongolian economy's macro-economic indicators have stabilised. GDP growth in 2004 was approximately 10.6%. The budget deficit has fallen to 1.7% of GDP. The inflation rate has been in single digits for several years. Due to the increased price of fuel imported from Russia, unfortunately the rate of inflation in 2004 was 11%, just exceeding the two digit threshold.
Some 97% of Mongolians are literate. In this sense it is an educated country. Some 75% of the population are under 35 years of age.
The health care system is functioning quite well. We are reducing the child mortality rate and the maternal mortality rate but there is still much to be done to make them better.
The political system is a combination of a parliamentary and a presidential form of government. However, Mongolia has more dominant characteristics of the parliamentary form of government. Every four years there is an election to parliament. Next year, through the election of the parliament, there is a presidential election. In the same year as the parliamentary election municipal elections take place all over the country.
Following the last parliamentary election, the seats have been divided roughly evenly among the main political parties, one of which is the MPRP. Another is a coalition. They decided to form a coalition government comprising exactly the same number of seats in the Cabinet — nine seats to each party. This is the first time Mongolians have learned to work together in a coalition. That is taking place but, of course, there are difficulties, especially when one of the subjects of the coalition government has split. There is now a new political situation in Mongolia. We are trying to find a good way out of this difficult situation and make the political climate more stable and economic policy more active.
We are glad to be in Ireland. We have heard and read much about the Irish success in the past 20 years, Ireland's ability to attract FDI and develop ICT, the reform of Ireland's tax system and going out to other markets and reforming education and focusing it on technical universities. These are good examples and we must learn from Ireland's achievements. That is why we have been asking many questions of our friends here. I hope many good things which have been done here will also be interesting for us to follow.
I thank the committee for receiving us. We are very grateful to be here.
I am a member of one of the parties in opposition in Parliament. I join the Vice-Chairman in welcoming a distinguished delegation from Mongolia, a country with which normally we do not have many bilateral links. It is wonderful to have our horizons broadened. The political presentation Mr. Enkhbayar has given us is fascinating for all of us who are interested in political development.
Some think Ireland is fixated with trade and economics. Although small, Ireland is a relatively important trading country. Trade is important to us. Our bilateral trade figures with Mongolia are small. What opportunities are available to increase bilateral trade between our two countries?
I note that one of the delegation's programmed events is obviously a meeting with Mongolian students here. Certainly, a growing dimension of Ireland's links with the People's Republic of China is the placement of students, both Irish students in China and Chinese students here. Mongolia has also begun such a process. Is this one sphere where we could strengthen our links by having more Mongolian students come to study in Ireland and perhaps having Irish students experience developments in Mongolia?
Mr. Enkhbayar
As Mongolia's ambassador to Ireland, Mr. Davaasambuu, and our honorary counsel are more familiar with these issues, I ask them to answer these questions.
Mr. Ernest Crossan
I am very pleased to be here as part of the delegation. I run an English language training school, the Dublin School of English. There are approximately 1,500 Mongolian students in Ireland. Reference was made to students from the People's Republic of China who very often come to Ireland before attending university. However, the profile of students from Mongolia is different, as many of them already have third level training and only a small element come to study English before attending university.
It is fair to say that, until 1990, the first foreign language in Mongolia was Russian but the emphasis is changing and the government now wants English to be the first foreign language. For this reason there is a strong demand for language training. In the main students attend English language programmes in Dublin and Cork.
It is important to develop this sector. I know from experience during the early days of language training when we created a market for French and Spanish students to come and study in Ireland that this led to further development in business, trade, tourism and so on. All areas of economic activity can be strengthened by developing the stem, in this case, English language skills. Any assistance we can give to Mongolia to develop these programmes is important. For example, if visa procedures were more accommodating, it would be of great help.
There are approximately 1,500 Mongolian students throughout the country. Giving students the facility to work 20 hours per week while studying in Ireland is an important measure that should continue. Good controls of the system can be developed.
H.E. Mr. Dalrain Davaasambuu
I am delighted to meet Members of the Oireachtas. While there is a low level of trade between Ireland and Mongolia, Mongolia has the potential to develop an export trade in cashmere and wool as well as clothing and other products. As the government's first priority is the development of IT, software and other computer components would form an element of Irish export trade with Mongolia. The Mongolian Government is seeking to promote trade by establishing a free trade agreement with the European Union, allowing duty free access to the Single Market for Mongolian goods. Mongolia is a small landlocked country. The Mongolian Government submitted a raft of communications to the European Union which were distributed in July to the European Parliament and the European Council. We hope that, as an active member of the European Union, Ireland will support and initiate the granting of this status to Mongolia.
In March we hope to organise seminars and business meetings at which the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and businessmen will engage in discussions and make connections with Irish business people. As the honorary counsel, Mr. Crossan, said, there are many Mongolians in Dublin who have developed good connections with Irish people. This is a good foundation for future development and a strengthening of our relations.
We would be very happy to gain the support of the committee for our efforts to allow students to come to Ireland on a constant basis. We will discuss this issue further with the Department of Foreign Affairs and other related Departments. Irish students who wish to go to Mongolia would be most welcome. I know students go to Mongolia during the gap year before attending university. As the government is due to announce that English will be the second official language, there is a demand for trainers who can train teachers in English. As Mr Enkhbayar told the committee, 60% of the population in Mongolia is under 35 years of age. Many of our young people would love to come to Ireland.
I express our heartfelt thanks to our honorary counsel, Mr. Crossan, who has promoted the relationship between our two countries. Ordinary people now know about Mongolia.
I welcome the delegation and wish its members every success. I understand the Mongolian Prime Minister is a member of the coalition party and that the government holds office under a power sharing arrangement with the MPRP. I also understand the elections held last June were disputed. We also held elections last June——
But there was no dispute about them.
No, I did not mean to imply that they were. May I ask Mr. Enkhbayar if everything has been resolved to his satisfaction and if the arrangements in parliament are working in practice? Am I correct in my understanding that he is also on a faith and religious mission? Perhaps he will tell us something about the religious background of the Mongolian people.
Mr. Enkhbayar
First, let me correct the figure given by the ambassador for the percentage of the population under 35 years of age. Some 75% of the population of Mongolia are under 35 years of age.
In response to Senator Coghlan's question on the election, it was not very fair as we found out from the high incidence of fraud. A great deal of money was spent on buying votes. We could have become involved in endless disputes about the problem of fraud but decided that Mongolia was a growing democratic country. Mongolia is a growing democracy. It was a bad experience but it is better to look forward and to work together to build up the country's political stability and to utilise the momentous economic growth taking place. We decided it was better to work together than to engage in that type of quarrel and as a result formed the coalition Government.
The coalition Government has had productive negotiations with the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, MPRP, a party set up in 1921 as a national freedom movement. We have been fighting against Mantuan Chinese since the beginning of the 20th century at which time we decided to join the Russians in their ambition to spread the revolution throughout the world. In that context, Russian soldiers were invited to take part in the fight against the Chinese. The Mongolians believed it was better to have close relations with the Russians than with the Chinese because Mongolia had been engaged for several centuries in difficulties with China in terms of Mongolia being a part of China or of China being a part of Mongolia. During the time of Genghis Khan, China was united as a country and was part of a big empire. Mongolian people have for many centuries taken a careful attitude to China. We struck up a friendship with the Russians in our fight for independence. It was not an easy task but, gradually, Mongolia has become an independent country.
Mongolia joined the United Nations in 1961. Since then we have introduced an education system and now approximately 98% of the people are literate. The new health care system has resulted in Mongolia becoming a healthy nation. At the beginning of the 20th century there were approximately 500,000 people in Mongolia. Today, Mongolia has 2.5 million people, too little in comparison with China which has a population of 2.4 billion. There are 145 million people in Russia.
The MPRP brought independence to Mongolia. Given the party was influenced by the former Soviet Union, it has adopted an extreme left ideology. However, it is considered to be the party which obtained independence for Mongolia.
In 1990, as a result of changes in the former Soviet Union, there were many democratic changes in Mongolia. Many new parties formed in the earlier 1990s. It was at that time the MPRP and others commenced political and economic reforms. The newly set up Democratic Party has become the biggest movement in the country. That party previously formed coalitions with other smaller parties. The MPRP was in power from 1990 to 1996 while the Democratic Party, in coalition with other smaller parties, was in power from 1996 to 2000. The MPRP returned to power from 2000 to 2004. A coalition elected in 2004 will remain in Government until the next election.
Of the 76 seats of Parliament, the MPRP holds 36 and the coalition Government holds 34. The coalition is called the Motherland Democracy Coalition. However, as a result of friction among different fractions it has since split into three political parties. Under existing Mongolian law a party with more than eight seats in Parliament can have parliamentary caucus but that parliamentary caucus must be formed by a political subject that participated in the election. That means that as the MPRP participated in the election as the MPRP and holds 36 seats it has parliamentary caucus. The Motherland Democracy Coalition participated in the election but due to the split its 34 members are ordinary members only representing three different parties: the Democratic Party, the Civil Courage Party and the New Democratic Socialist Party. However, even though together those parties have more than eight seats, they cannot under existing law form a parliamentary caucus because the subject that participated in the election has been dismantled.
Some 25 of the 34 members of the Democratic Party, Civil Courage Party and New Democratic Socialist Party have joined the MPRP caucus bringing to 61 the MPRP caucus. The Parliament now consists of the 61 MPRP caucus and 14 other members. Initially, the coalition Government was made up of the MPRP with 36 seats and others with 34 seats and the Cabinet was evenly split between the two biggest parties, with nine seats going to the MPRP and nine going to the Motherland Democracy Coalition. It was decided at that time that for the first two years the MPRP would hold the post of Speaker of Parliament and the coalition would hold the post of Prime Minister and that would be reversed for the remaining two years. That was the initial agreement. However, as the coalition is no longer in existence there are many questions about what we should now do. As 25 members of the coalition have joined the MPRP we will have to reconsider that agreement in the context of ensuring political stability. The Government will try to ensure political stability in the country by focusing on economic growth. Gross GDP in Mongolia is 10.6% — the first time in its history Mongolia's growth is represented by a two digit percentage. This is the political situation in Mongolia. In this sense, it will be interesting for us to study Ireland's experience of social partnership agreements among political parties, trade unions, entrepreneurs and the private sector. We would be interested in looking at this and using it for our purposes. Social partnership brings political stability and makes a good basis for decisions to be made in the Parliament.
Mongolia is a mainly Buddhist country. Approximately 75% to 80% of the people consider themselves Buddhists. There are many active new Christian denominations and missionaries working in Mongolia, especially from the United States — Mormons, Adventists and others. There is also a Catholic Church and Catholic priests work in Mongolia.
There is a small minority, of approximately 70,000 or 80,000, in the western part of the country called Kazaks who are Muslim. They moved to Mongolia early in the 20th century. There was a difficult situation at that time in the Xinjiang province of China. They escaped from that difficulty and asked permission to live in Mongolia. At that time, the Mongolian Government gave a piece of land to the Kazaks and now they live in western Mongolia.
It is a multi-religious country in the sense that there are Buddhists, Christians and Muslims living together, but the dominant religion is Buddhism, in the form of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is a respected religious leader in the country. Of course when he visits Mongolia, we always receive many objections from China. They do not like him visiting other countries. Sometimes that creates problems, but he is invited by religious communities and he is not the Government's guest. We cannot do anything about religious communities inviting whoever they want to invite. It is up to the religious community to invite the Dalai Lama, other lamas or other guests. We do not interfere. We are always trying to explain to the Chinese that it is a free country and it is up to the people to invite whoever they want and to hear the sayings of whoever they want.
We have a so-called multi-pillar foreign policy concept which means that Mongolia's independence and security is guaranteed. Mongolia is not dependent on one country or on its neighbours, but on as many countries as possible. It is amazing to think that we have been able to succeed in keeping our independence. Although we are located between these two super powers, with 1.4 billion people to our south and 145 million people to our north, somehow with all these historical developments we have managed to be an independent country in that part of the world. Independence is a guarantee that we are a free actively developing country. We try to be a model for others so that they can look at us and say, "Even the Mongolians can do this" and ask why Kazakhs, Kyrguz, Armenians, Koreans or whoever cannot implement this democratic transition and all these economic reforms. We try to serve as a good model for others.
I welcome the delegation to Ireland and hope they enjoy their stay. I must warn them that the social partnership model, to which part of Ireland's success is attributed, diminishes to a great extent parliamentary power. There are downsides to it also and they need to keep that in mind.
Are there 74 members in the Mongolian Parliament?
Mr. Enkhbayar
There are 76 seats in the Parliament. At present there are 74 members because two seats are disputed in the court. The court will rule on what will happen with these two seats.
How many members of parliament are women?
Mr. Enkhbayar
Eleven members of the previous parliament were women. We do not distinguish men and women and we cannot remember the figure.
Mr. Enkhbayar must be making some distinction on the basis of their birth rate, which is fairly substantial. They obviously know the difference.
Mr. Enkhbayar
Unfortunately the number of women members of parliament has decreased. In our MPRP caucus, we have five women members. In the other coalition, there are two. Therefore, there are seven women members altogether. We have been trying to introduce a 20% or 30% quota for women but we have not yet reached consensus on this subject. This is one of the priorities we are discussing.
They are getting there.
I welcome the delegation. Is Mongolia industry or agriculture based? What is the minimum wage in Mongolia? I ask every delegation attending this committee if it considers that waste management is a significant problem in Ireland. How is it dealt with in Mongolia?
Mr. Davaasambuu
Our economy is broken down as follows: 30% agriculture, 30% or 40% minerals and the rests is services. The agriculture sector is becoming smaller than others. We have ambitions to have more industrial success.
As to waste management, Mongolia is a former socialist country. On the environment issue we are very tough, especially on the building of industries and factories. We also accepted some international conventions and agreements. Mongolia is trying to cope with these agreements. It is difficult for smaller developing countries to maintain them. We need to provide for more environmental protections.
On waste management, we are trying to maintain clean villages. The European Union has implemented environmental projects in Holland to help create a clean environment. The Mongolian Government pays a great deal of attention to the environment. It is a tradition for Mongolian people to respect the land as it plays an important part in our lives.
I welcome the Mongolian ambassador, the Deputy Prime Minister and his delegation to the meeting. I also thank Senator Hanafin for arranging it. The committee agreed unanimously that we should meet the delegation. I congratulate Mongolia on its work to date on its democratic process which is working well. Mongolia is an independent republic which I wish continued success.
I am delighted to hear Mongolia has declared itself to be a nuclear weapon free zone. That is a marvellous achievement. In that regard, it is leading the world and should keep up the good work. I would like to see continued friendship between us. I am delighted the delegation is present today and wish its members a good stay in Ireland. We look forward to meeting them in Mongolia in the not too distant future.
I thank Mr. Enkhbayar and his delegation for coming. I understand this is the final day of their visit to Ireland. I hope they enjoy the rest of their stay. I am also aware the delegation will meet the Minister for Foreign Affairs later today. I wish its members a safe journey home.
The joint committee went into private session at 10.23 a.m. and resumed in public session at 10.25 a.m.