The office of the President of Mongolia, Public Relations & Communications Division

www.president.mn

2011-01-29

Mongolia Actively Participates in the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum

Davos-Klosters, Switzerland -- Tsakhia Elbegdorj, President of Mongolia participated in the 41st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He expressed views on certain issues and made speeches, and bilateral meetings with heads of state and exchanged views with business leaders.

He participated in and expressed his views at meetings, sessions and gatherings of
world economic leaders namely “Means for Reliable Water Future,” “Mining & Metals
Policy Governors,” “New Growth Model,” “Development Engine is Fair Business –
Davos Against Corruption,” and “Stabilizing Commodity Prices and Supply in a
Resource-Constrained World.”

The President of Mongolia made initiations on protecting environment and reducing negative impacts caused by global warming and has been actively working on these matters on international platform. President Elbegdorj was invited to the meeting Means for Reliable Water Future, the World Economic Forum that took place in Davos on January 27, 2011.

Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations and leaders of global agenda council’s branches those work for environmental protection, and businesses those make big investments for environmental protection attended the meeting and discussed the protection of pure water resource - the new challenge to global communities.

Recent documents and results of studies on water show that it is time to implement new policies on water. “First of all, we need to contain water usage within appropriate limits. Today an American’s usage of water for five minute shower every morning is equal to a whole day water usage of an African family. Regardless of where they live, people need to use water in a proper manner and heads of state and governments need to create pure water monitoring mechanism,” Mr.Annan said.

President Elbegdorj talked about the Mongolian tradition of legal coordination of proper usage of water dating hundreds of years ago. He said that nomadic Mongols - those used to live in the most environmentally friendly ways – encounter water issues due to global warming and the negative impacts of climate change. He talked about the government measures on water. He appealed global leaders to implement new policies to protect water and investors to spend certain portions of their incomes for environmental and water protection and exchanged views with the participants of the meeting on these matters.

In the meeting, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, CEO of Nestle group participated in the meeting. The group has been funding the studies of global pure water resources. The President of Mongolia requested to include Mongolia in the studies last year and the working group of the studies accepted the request and began related preparation work.