ULAN BATOR, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's central bank's growth forecast for the country's economy this year has been lowered to 3.8 percent, a senior bank official said Wednesday.
"We have lowered this year's economic growth forecast to 3.8 percent from an earlier forecast of around 8 percent mainly due to the slowdown in the growth of the agricultural sector caused by livestock loss," Nanjid Urgamalsuvd, head of the Monetary Policy and Forecasting Division at the Bank of Mongolia, told a press conference.
At least 5.9 million or 9.2 percent of Mongolia's livestock have died in the extremely cold weather known as "dzud" so far this winter, according to the country's State Emergency Commission.
"Dzud" is a Mongolian term to describe a severely cold winter when a large number of livestock die because the ground is frozen or covered in snow.
In the winter, Mongolia saw record snowfall, the largest since 1975, and around 90 percent of its territory had been covered with snow up to 100 cm thick, the country's emergency agency said.
Mongolia, one of the last surviving nomadic countries in the world, has elevated its disaster preparedness to high alert due to the harsh winter and big livestock loss.
The promotion of the livestock husbandry is seen as the most viable way to diversify the landlocked country's mining-dependent economy. ■