Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Speaker of the State Great Khural G.Zandanshatar held an official meeting with Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India, Om Birla.

At the beginning of the meeting, Speaker G.Zandanshatar said he attaches great significance to the visit, expressing gratitude for the warm welcome. “India was the first country to provide COVID-19 vaccine assistance – 150 thousand doses of Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine – to Mongolia. When the situation got difficult as the spread of the disease escalated in India, the Government of Mongolia provided USD 1 million humanitarian assistance to the country. The Mongolian government established an agreement with India’s Jubilant Generics company and bought 200 thousand doses of Remdesivir. This is how the two countries have supported each other through the difficult time of the pandemic”

The Mongolian side gave information on Mongolia’s economic state during the pandemic and the progress of the oil refinery project, informing the Indian side that the State Great Khural approved a law to support oil refinery development in January 2021 and a working group led by the Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia is providing full support in the implementation of the project.

Emphasizing the advancements in relations between the two countries, Speaker G.Zandanshatar thanked India for involving 76 Mongolian schoolteachers in an English language program in India.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said, “India and Mongolia have been partnering through the expansion of our long-standing historical ties and shared values of democracy. The state visits made between the two countries in 2015 and 2019 elevated our relations to a new level. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2015 visit to Mongolia was a historic event. I would like to emphasize here that the visit deepened the mutual trust and cooperation between the governments and people of the two countries”

The Indian side added that the mutual support between the two countries during the pandemic served as a good example to other countries and undertook to give increased focus to opening the oil refinery, a symbol of bilateral cooperation, in the scheduled timeframe.

Speaker G.Zandanshatar put forth proposals to learn from India’s achievements in Information technology, receive the country’s assistance in establishing a joint school and building a Mongolian Silicon Valley, expand cultural cooperation between the two countries, and shoot Bollywood films in Mongolia.

Mr. Om Birla pledged full support to Speaker G.Zandanshatar’s proposals and proposed expanding cooperation in mining sector, supporting Mongolia’s mining export and expressed its readiness to cooperate in efforts to export coking coal from Mongolia to India.