Premier starts his official visit South Korea

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, /MONTSAME/ The Prime Minister S.Batbold arrived Wednesday in Seoul to pay an official visit to the Republic of Korea at invitation of his counterpart Kim Hwang-sik. Right at the airpot the Mongolian Premier was welcomed by the guards of honor, then the national anthems of the two countries were sounded. Before starting his official visit, S.Batbold has held a meeting with Mongolians living or working in the country. As statistics say, 134 thousand Mongolians are abroad at the moment, a majority of them--over 30 thousand--are in S.Korea. Meeting with some 200 Mongolians, the Premier has underlined that matters of these 30 thousand Mongolians are in center of attention of Mongolia's government and public and of the Korean government and state. He has said Mongolia's government studied opportunities to free the Mongolians from visas to S.Korea and has been running talks with the Korean side on this matter. Then he has said the sides had raised an issue at the governmental level regarding granting professional certificates to the Mongolians in Korea and added that related officials for this. S.Batbold has highlighted some issues such as increasing of a number of pediatric hospitals and maternal houses in Mongolia, a distribution of benefits from the Human Development Funds to the Mongolians abroad, involving low and middle income people in a program called "New Great Construction" to give them apartments, an air pollution problem in Ulaanbaatar. The Premier has underlined that the government is making all efforts to make the Mongolians come back, give them standards of living, stop the export of the labor force to foreign countries. “When visiting Omnogobi and other aimags where the biggest projects of mining are being implemented, I saw that these projects urgently need specialized in engineering and techniques people,” he has stressed. During the meeting, a work officially sarted to list the Mongolians abroad in the Civil Revised Registration.

"Everybody must get registered so a to receive benefits from the HDF and shares of the 'Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi' LLC," he said. By the way, the revised registration of the abroad-living citizens of Mongolian will last until October of 2011. The official leg of the visit is to launch Thursday.

B.Khuder