ULAN BATOR, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia is striving to combat a rise in consumer prices driven by external factors.
On Wednesday, the Mongolian government decided to issue a soft loan worth 230 billion Mongolian Tugriks (74.8 million U.S. dollars) to flour producers and meat processing enterprises, according to the Food and Agriculture Ministry.
The decision is part of government efforts to combat rising prices caused by the pandemic and the ongoing geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the ministry said, stressing the need to ease growing meat and flour prices.
The loan is expected to be allocated through commercial banks with an interest rate of 3 percent, it added.
An average Mongolian household consumes 373 types of goods per month, of which more than 200 are imported, Batmunkh Batdavaa, head of the country's National Statistics Office, said in a statement.
"We cannot regulate the prices of imported goods because they are directly dependent on external factors. We can only regulate the prices of domestically produced products such as meat and flour," Batdavaa said.
In addition, Mongolia will exempt the excise tax on the gasoline brand AI-92 and diesel fuel until the end of the year as part of efforts to ensure stable prices.
The average retail price of the most commonly used gasoline brand AI-92 was 2,381 Mongolian Tugriks per liter at the end of the first quarter, up 64.8 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the NSO. As of Thursday, the price of gasoline was 2,390 Mongolian Tugriks. (1 USD = 3,090 Tugriks) ■
