madam president commissioner mongolia is rich in mineral resources such as copper coal tungsten wolfram tin and gold
this makes her an extremely appealing economic partner
but while pursuing our economic interests we should also use the opportunity to apply conditionality in order to encourage mongolia to start with much-needed reforms
there are severe problems in mongolia with rampant corruption lack of good governance and insufficient international cooperation
furthermore there are also some pressing issues with the management of her natural resources
at the moment the mineral reserves of mongolia are rigorously exploited by many foreign companies with the complicity of the mongolian government
this has led to a situation where the people of mongolia are not benefiting from the country's resources
they must work in very poor conditions with some workers for example extracting gold with mercury
mercury fumes are causing irreversible harm to the health of such workers
but that is not all
there are many children born in mongolia with deformities and incurable diseases as a result of harmful workplace conditions
the mongolian economy is also facing challenges both because of export duties and import bans that russia and china have been imposing and owing to technical shortcomings
livestock constitutes about eighty of mongolia's agricultural output but meat cannot be exported as there are insufficient facilities for quality control
if we are committed to pursuing a partnership and cooperation agreement then we should help mongolia overcome the problems that the country is facing in order to develop socially economically and ecologically sustainable relations
