Mongolia tilting toward Tokyo

By Edward Neilan
Special to World Tribune.com

TOKYO--Take it from Badamdarjiin Batkhishig, Mongolia is committed to a market economy to go with its fledgling democratic reforms.

Batkhishig--with his permission Japanese colleagues call him "Bato-san" and so do I--is in Tokyo for several weeks soaking up Japanese economic know-how, particularly the drafting of laws having to do with financial matters.

Bato-san is the chief economic policy adviser to Mongolian President Natsagin Bagabandi.

Mongolia, which severed decades-long dependency on the old Soviet Union less than 10 years ago, needs all the economic help it can get.

Japan may be having its own economic worries but, after all, this is the world's No. 2 economy. There is a lot to learn by a country like Mongolia whose per capita Gross Domestic Product is US$2,250 and whose 2,538,211 people must share telephones with 26 others and television with 17 others.

Bato-san likes "the industrious and diligent nature and discipline of the Japanese people." He told me he also admires the "high level and skill of management" here.

He attended a speech the other day (and shook hands with and exchanged small talk) by Japan's Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs Eisuke Sakakibara, known even in Mongolia as "Mr. Yen."

Sakakibara's January 22 speech, which has been widely quoted around the world, was titled "The End of Market Fundamentalism." Bato-san agreed with Sakakibara's long term thesis about a decline of United States dollar dominance. But short-term, Mongolia is dealing heavily in both dollars and yen.

While the U.S. has been a strong aid donor (allocation for fiscal 1997 was US$7.9 million), Japan across-the-board is Mongolia's biggest benefactor. There has been US$350 million in grant aid and US$280 million in investments.

Most of the latter are in 30 joint ventures, some of which Bato-san helped bring to fruition.

They are mostly in electric power, food processing and communications. Japanese firms have taken over refurbishing Mongolia's only railway and are now upgrading the Russian-built 1,125-mile line.

Mongolia's major industries are copper, construction materials, mining (mainly coal), food and beverages and processing of animal products.

Major exports, besides copper, are in the agricultural line--cashmere, wool, hides, and livestock. Bato-san has absorbed the Japanese work ethic but has taken time out to watch sumo (Japanese-style traditional wrestling) matches on television in the late afternoons of a recent two-week stretch.

The reason for his fascination with sumo is that Mongolian wrestler Kyokushuzan performed well in the latest tournament, finishing with a 9-6 record, his best showing since last July.

Kyokushuzan, known as "The pride of Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia's capital), has taken to sumo although he is not the best back home in Mongolian-style wrestling, the national sport. Bato-san assured me that Kyokushuzan trains by lifting barbells, although some Mongolian wrestlers still lift livestock in workout sessions.

Bato-san brought me two copies of the "Mongol Messenger,"a weekly English-language newspaper published in Ulaanbaatar which covered a range of political, economic, social activities and details of a new "white collar prison" for those implicated in a scandal which brought down the Mongol Bank. There were advertisements for computers, light electronic goods, a book "How To Speak Mongolian, " specials at Churchill's English Tea Shop & Bakery," an expanded menu at Ristorante Pizza de la Casa and the newspaper's own T-shirt selling for US$10.

Bato-san graduated from Leningrad State University in 1979 in the old Soviet Union and speaks fluent Russian. He came home to earn a Ph.D at Mongolian State University with a dissertation "Problems for Management of Wages and Salary."

He has traveled widely, especially in Asia. After a recent trip to the United States he began studying English and now speaks "a little," as he says.

During a lull in our conversation, Bato-san stretched out his arm and pulled back the sleeve of his coat to show a shiny gold Swiss-made watch. He said "China's President Jiang Zemin gave me this when I met him last year."