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Mongolia to restructure government ministries, agencies amid budget deficit

Xinhua, October 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

The government of Mongolia is planning to restructure its ministries and other agencies in order to meet the budget gap.

The announcement was made Wednesday by Bolor Bayarbaatar, Mongolian minister of Finance. He said six ministries and other government agencies would be merged in order to save cost in the move.

The country's 2015 budget is facing a shortfall of 900 billion tugrug, or about 450 million U.S. dollars, according to the Mongolian official.

Mongolia has 2.3 billion U.S. dollars external debt in the form of bonds and soft loans, which are due to be repaid starting April, 2017 through 2020.

The government decided to resort to measures including reducing capital expenditures and freezing some state investments to overcome the budget challenge.

Also, civil servants will see their salaries shrink by 30 percent.

Mongolia, which is resources-dependent for economic growth, has been facing severe economic crisis due to the downturn of global commodity market. Prices of Mongolia's key export commodities such as coal and copper have fallen sharply in the world market, which has served a devastating blow to this landlocked Asian country. Endit