David Cameron, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom is visiting to Mongolia /the 25th-26th of April/ by the invitation of B.Battsetseg, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia.
The 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mongolia, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland happened last year, and this visit is the first visit to Mongolia at the level of the UK Foreign Minister after 11 years. Today he gave some information about this visit and the two countries' relations to the press while he was visiting in 23rd secondary school in Ulaanbaatar to see the activities of the Pearson English Program.
- Welcome. Thank you for visiting democratic Mongolia. What priorities did you set for your visit regarding economics and other areas?
- I think the first priority is to celebrate the fact that we are two democracies that share common interests. We both believe in sovereign, independent countries that are respected by others. I think the next thing is to talk about what we can do together. We can work on together on education, where you've decided to make English your second language, we should do more to help you with that. We need to talk about energy and climate change and how we make the most of our economies and trade and business. All these issues I've been discussing with your Foreign Minister, President, and with tour Prime Minister.
- Many countries are offering Mongolia to cooperate when it comes to critical minerals. What are the advantages that Britain is offering economically and technology-wise?
- I think the biggest advantage we offer is we're saying to Mongolia asking you to choose between your important neighbors and us. We're saying you should have extra choice of countries like Britain so, called third neighbor countries.
And we think we would be a good choice when it comes to mining, technology, and business we have a great business that can invest in your country and they also adhere to high standards of transparency, high standards of fighting corruption, high standards of making sure that the country concerned gets the full benefit of the investment. So I think Britain is a good partner and as I say, it's for you to choose. It's your choice and we come here as a potential choice for you.
- How do you envision fostering collaboration between our two countries in education sector moving forward?
- Well, I think it's very exciting that you've chosen English as your second language, and so the most important thing you must do is to help you to deliver that choice. And we're making a pledge that any Mongolian teacher who wants to learn how to teach English, will support us with online and other services that we provide. And I've been discussing with our ambassador how we're going to put more money into making that choice.
And I've had an excellent meeting with your Education Secretary to make sure that we help to deliver the ambition you have of making English the second language of giving all these young people the opportunity. Because English language is the language of business and commerce and trade and increasingly diplomacy. Learning the English language gives your young people a great ability to go out and succeed and make successes whatever jobs they choose.
- There is a UK company that did a feasibility study on building a hydropower plant in Mongolia before. And then in your op-ed, you mentioned that the UK is supporting to build the hydropower from Uzbekistan to Pakistan. Is there any possibility to our two countries to cooperate on this?
- I think there's huge potential to cooperate because there are two things we need to do together. One is we have to tackle climate change. We need to reduce carbon emissions. And the carbon emissions here in Mongolia, for historical reasons, are high. If you want to reduce them, we want to help you with that. And the way to do that is to have a green energy transition, to use more renewable energy, more solar, more wind power, and of course more hydro. So, there is the need to cooperate on climate change, but there is also the business and the environmental investment and the technology required to make that happen.
And I think Britain does have good expertise, great companies in that area, and I make this argument, that they come with no strings attached, unlike some of the other potential partners. We want to come and invest here for your benefit, for this green transition, using our technology and expertise, but we want you to be the beneficiaries of it and to see your carbon emissions fall, to see pollution come down, to see the quality of life improve in that way. In that way, green investment to tackle climate change is very much a win-win solution for the people of Mongolia.
- Thank you.
David Cameron, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom is visiting to Mongolia /the 25th-26th of April/ by the invitation of B.Battsetseg, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia.
The 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mongolia, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland happened last year, and this visit is the first visit to Mongolia at the level of the UK Foreign Minister after 11 years. Today he gave some information about this visit and the two countries' relations to the press while he was visiting in 23rd secondary school in Ulaanbaatar to see the activities of the Pearson English Program.
- Welcome. Thank you for visiting democratic Mongolia. What priorities did you set for your visit regarding economics and other areas?
- I think the first priority is to celebrate the fact that we are two democracies that share common interests. We both believe in sovereign, independent countries that are respected by others. I think the next thing is to talk about what we can do together. We can work on together on education, where you've decided to make English your second language, we should do more to help you with that. We need to talk about energy and climate change and how we make the most of our economies and trade and business. All these issues I've been discussing with your Foreign Minister, President, and with tour Prime Minister.
- Many countries are offering Mongolia to cooperate when it comes to critical minerals. What are the advantages that Britain is offering economically and technology-wise?
- I think the biggest advantage we offer is we're saying to Mongolia asking you to choose between your important neighbors and us. We're saying you should have extra choice of countries like Britain so, called third neighbor countries.
And we think we would be a good choice when it comes to mining, technology, and business we have a great business that can invest in your country and they also adhere to high standards of transparency, high standards of fighting corruption, high standards of making sure that the country concerned gets the full benefit of the investment. So I think Britain is a good partner and as I say, it's for you to choose. It's your choice and we come here as a potential choice for you.
- How do you envision fostering collaboration between our two countries in education sector moving forward?
- Well, I think it's very exciting that you've chosen English as your second language, and so the most important thing you must do is to help you to deliver that choice. And we're making a pledge that any Mongolian teacher who wants to learn how to teach English, will support us with online and other services that we provide. And I've been discussing with our ambassador how we're going to put more money into making that choice.
And I've had an excellent meeting with your Education Secretary to make sure that we help to deliver the ambition you have of making English the second language of giving all these young people the opportunity. Because English language is the language of business and commerce and trade and increasingly diplomacy. Learning the English language gives your young people a great ability to go out and succeed and make successes whatever jobs they choose.
- There is a UK company that did a feasibility study on building a hydropower plant in Mongolia before. And then in your op-ed, you mentioned that the UK is supporting to build the hydropower from Uzbekistan to Pakistan. Is there any possibility to our two countries to cooperate on this?
- I think there's huge potential to cooperate because there are two things we need to do together. One is we have to tackle climate change. We need to reduce carbon emissions. And the carbon emissions here in Mongolia, for historical reasons, are high. If you want to reduce them, we want to help you with that. And the way to do that is to have a green energy transition, to use more renewable energy, more solar, more wind power, and of course more hydro. So, there is the need to cooperate on climate change, but there is also the business and the environmental investment and the technology required to make that happen.
And I think Britain does have good expertise, great companies in that area, and I make this argument, that they come with no strings attached, unlike some of the other potential partners. We want to come and invest here for your benefit, for this green transition, using our technology and expertise, but we want you to be the beneficiaries of it and to see your carbon emissions fall, to see pollution come down, to see the quality of life improve in that way. In that way, green investment to tackle climate change is very much a win-win solution for the people of Mongolia.
- Thank you.