AKIPRESS.COM - Prime Minister of Mongolia J.Erdenebat has announced a new Government plan for fighting air pollution. Speaking in Ulaanbaatar on December 23, he said the Government needs to implement a number of actions to solve this serious annual problem.

"First of all, we need to redevelop the 'ger districts' (80 percent of all emissions in the city comes from domestic stoves, practically all of which are located in these districts). We are planning to construct apartments in the ger district using a USD 50 million aid package from China. Li Keqiang, Premier of China promised to give finance aid to Mongolia, when he visited Ulaanbaatar in July," the Prime Minister said.

"Then, since, Mongolia cannot produce electricity from natural gas, the National Committee to Reduce Air Pollution approved cutting the electricity night tariff to zero from 1st of November, 2016. In addition, the Mongolian Government has approved MNT5 billion for the fight against air pollution in 2017, of which a total of MNT3.5 billion will be for the zero electricity night time tariff," he went on saying.

Referring to the previous administration, Mr Erdenbat concluded: "Mongolia ‘burned’ MNT130-140 billion for fighting air pollution, however it was unsuccessful. So, we have rejected the programme to distribute cleaner-burning coal-powered stoves to families."

The air pollution in Mongolia has been made more serious by the coldest winter conditions in ten years.