SPEAKER RECEIVES ADB'S REPS

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, /MONTSAME/ The Parliament Speaker met Thursday a delegation headed by Adrian Rutenberg, a permanent representative of the Asian Development Bank to Mongolia. They shared views on a course of the project on road construction of western region implemented with a financing of the ADB.
Beginning the meeting, the Speaker emphasized that the ADB is effectively cooperating with Mongolia and is investing a development of its infrastructure and livelihood of people.
Mr. Rutenberg said the ADB plans to reflect an infrastructure sector investment in the assistance program for Mongolia which is being worked out by the ADB.
Experts of the ADB Laksman Atikorala and Steven Carkman spoke about first and second stages of the road running in the western region.
The Speaker expressed a support to the experts' proposal to intensify the project's course and promised to give guidelines to related Ministries and agencies on this matter. “The costs of transporting cement and road construction materials are very high from Khovd and Bayan-Olgii aimags to Ulaanbaatar or China's Urumqi city. Due to this, the budgeted money becomes insufficient for completing the road works,” Demberel stressed and proposed either to increase money for the road project or limit a running of new roads. He asked the ADB officials to pay great attention to these issues.
The ADB side said they concerned about economic benefit of auto roads in the western region but wished them to boost various sectors especially a mining sphere.
“We have a good understanding about the new roads' economic benefits for the western region. A great traffic is expected on these roads that are, by the way, are being run on high mountains of Altai and will connect two countries,” Demberel said.
B.Khuder