Mongolian President urges to support food exports

Oyundelger 2017-09-15 07:09

Agriculture

Mongolian President urges to support food exports.

Mongolian President urges to support food exports. Mongolia could “multiply” food exports to its southern neighbor China but needs to offer more financial and policy support to enable its producers to compete, Mongolian President Mr. Khaltmaa Battulga said at a forum on food security in Ulaanbaatar. Mr. President said that Mongolia was not doing enough to protect agribusinesses, and should raise import taxes and provide more credit to the sector. “Mongolian food producers use only 30 percent of their capacity, and only 1 percent of Mongolian land is used for farming, but if favorable policies pushed that to around 3 percent, Mongolia could become an exporter of healthy, organic wheat or potatoes, he said. Mongolia, traditionally a pastoral economy, has potential meat surpluses, with a population of 3.1 million people and over 70 million heads of livestock. Beef imports into China are expected to increase as wealthier urban Chinese purchase more meat, with the country’s own herds likely to be limited by land and water constraints, said Mr. President. However, Mongolia exported only 4 tonnes of beef to China past year and needs to improve animal health issues and hygiene requirements in order to increase meat imports.