Honourable Chairman,

Your Excellency, ILO Director General, Mr. Guy Ryder,

Distinguished Guests and Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity of extending my warmest greetings as the first Prime Minister of Mongolia attending the International Labour Conference representing the people of Mongolia.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the International Labour Organization and the Director-General Honourable Guy Ryder for the kind invitation extended to the Government of Mongolia for taking part in the “World of Work” Summit organized during the current 103^rd Session of the International Labour Conference.

I would like also to congratulate the International Labour Organization, the Noble Peace Prize winning organization, for successfully undertaking multifaceted activities through tri-partite collaboration of the Government, Employer and Trade Unions to create an adequate employment and social welfare system, meeting the needs of member states for development related to their economic characteristics and potential.

Since becoming a member of the International Labour Organization in 1968, Mongolia has been cultivating constructive and fruitful cooperation with the International Labour Organization in a broad range of areas including labour and social welfare.

Mongolia, a country with a history of 2220 years of statehood, has been successfully nurturing political democracy and economic reforms for the past 25 years. With a population of 3 million and 1.5 million square kilometers of territory, Mongolia is a landlocked country with the lowest population density and at the same time uniquely located between the two major world markets, Russia and China.

Mongolia is one of the rapidly growing economies in the world and has secured double digit economic growth for three consecutive years. It is placed in the top 10 countries in the world that have major coal, copper and gold resources.

Coal, copper, gold, iron ore, fluorspar and crude oil constitute the majority of our exports but Mongolia is still an agricultural economy with about 50 million livestock. Goat cashmere is also one of our principal commodity exports as Mongolia is second in the world with goat cashmere resources.

The above-mentioned advantages and concrete legal measures undertaken by the Government to create a business friendly environment have placed Mongolia in the center of investors attention. Private sector, domestic and foreign invested enterprises compose the majority of Mongolian economy including the mega copper project ranked third in the world and small and medium enterprises.

“The Post 2015: The Future We Want” agenda that will identify the world economic, social and development policy is currently being discussed globally. Mongolia is actively involved in these discussions and considers it important to emphasize the following:

1. Supporting decent employment: The Government of Mongolia has forwarded to the Parliament of Mongolia the policy on employment till 2021 consistent with the International Labour Organization’s decent labour policy.

2. We are pleased by the fact that Mongolia was the first country selected to benefit from the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) at a time when the World is moving ahead towards green development.

3. As a landlocked country itself, Mongolia leads other similar countries, and with the United Nation’s support, we have established an International Think-Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries in Ulaanbaatar.

In Mongolia, there are currently ninety thousand small and medium enterprises operating with 910,000 employees. The Government is undertaking important and concrete steps to create a sustainable, transparent, red-tape free government service, and investment friendly taxation environment for business enterprises and investors. One important component of these measures is the Government’s National Program called “An Employed Mongolian with a job and income”. Within the framework of this Program, we have implemented certain measures and accomplished concrete results.

The setting up the Ministry of Labour independently within the Government structure has been an important step in policy reforms. Besides employment and labour relations, small and medium enterprise, cooperatives and self-employment, vocational training, technical education system were established under the Ministry of Labour. Therefore, it has become a necessary step to solve labour market demand-supply issues, including human resources for small and medium enterprises, to connect the employers’ needs and job seekers’ information in a unified information system.

The Government of Mongolia is also supporting the rights of labour by implementing a programs and projects targeting “Assistance with Employment for citizens over 40 years”, “Promoting businesses” directed towards the target groups.

It has been over 20 years since social tri-partite cooperation emerged and developed in Mongolia. I would like to highlight that ILO’s multifaceted support, technical assistance, professional experts and advisors in Mongolia has played an enormous role in raising the social cooperation development to the highest level. For the last 20 years, the social partnership has successfully spread to the local, sectoral and enterprise organization levels. Moreover it is a role model for collective agreements, mutual recognition and ensuring the culture of respect and honour.

The Government of Mongolia is grateful to the Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions and the Mongolian Employers’ Federation, social partners who have made an invaluable contribution to developing social cooperation and partnership.

Mongolia is one of the Asian countries to have adopted the 8 Fundamental Conventions of the International Labour Organization. We have an objective of intensifying the adoption of other ILO Conventions and are preparing to join Convention 176 on “Mining security and health”, Convention 88 on “Labour agencies” and Convention 181 on “Private Labour agencies”.

Finally, Honourable Chairman,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to again express my sincere gratitude to the ILO for organising the “World of Work” summit which includes 5000 delegates from over 180 countries.

I believe that during this summit, pivotal issues of concerns will be discussed and significant decisions will be taken to ensure the labour and social welfare issues of member states will be addressed.

We have a saying: “The one who works is the one who earns”, which has the same meaning as “No pain, no gain”. As I have eight siblings, from childhood we had a very strict labour division and responsibilities within our household. Working in my student years at various factories, like salt and brick factories, has taught me the taste of work and seeing the benefits of hard work through my own eyes. I call upon our Mongolian youths to always work and exert effort.

In conclusion, I would like to invite you all to visit our beautiful country of Mongolia, to experience our ancient history and promising future.

I wish every success to the Summit.

Thank you all for your attention.