In the Sanginohaier Khan district in the southwest of Ulaanbaatar city, a brand new processing pool shimmers in the sunlight. On June 15th, with the start button pressed, the largest and most advanced sewage treatment facility in Mongolia's history, the Ulaanbaatar Central Sewage Treatment Plant, was officially put into operation. At the scene, Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs, witnessed this moment together with the Director of the Office of the President of Mongolia, Ulus Tugeled, and Foreign Minister Battsetseg. This factory is not only a set of precision equipment, but also embodies the expectations and sweat of China and Mongolia for more than ten years.

From commitment to visit to completion and operation

  In the following years, the project was financed by the Export Import Bank of China. In February 2019, China Railway Fourth Group and Beijing Construction Engineering Group jointly signed a contract for construction, and Shanghai Municipal Design Institute completed the design based on the experience of northern Chinese cities. During the epidemic, China and Mongolia opened a "green channel" and dispatched 46 Chinese technical personnel to Mongolia for construction to ensure that the project did not stop. Nowadays, the blueprint has finally become a reality and an important symbol of mutual assistance between China and Mongolia.

Building the largest pollution control project with Chinese standards

The factory is the largest and most complex sewage treatment facility in Mongolia, with a designed maximum daily treatment capacity of 250000 cubic meters of sewage (including 150000 cubic meters of domestic sewage and 100000 cubic meters of industrial wastewater). It adopts biological treatment and ultraviolet disinfection technology, and the effluent quality can meet the latest discharge standards of Mongolia. It can be directly discharged into the Tula River. After the completion of the project, it will solve the problem of insufficient processing capacity of the old factory built in 1964 in Ulaanbaatar, alleviate the ecological pressure on the Selenge River and Baikal Lake basins, and benefit nearly 45% of the population in Mongolia. 

Putting People's Livelihood First, Continuing to Write a New Chapter of Neighbor Friendship

Wang Yi stated at the inauguration ceremony that China has always supported Mongolia's economic development and improvement of people's livelihoods. Since the 1950s, Chinese aid workers have helped build more than 850 projects in Mongolia. In the new century, cooperation between the two sides will continue to be guided by people's well-being. On behalf of the President of Mongolia, Uyghur Tugeled delivered a speech stating that this sewage treatment plant is an important achievement of Mongolia China cooperation and a concrete manifestation of good neighborly friendship, bringing tangible benefits to the Mongolian people. He thanked China for its support and looked forward to greater development of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. China will continue to uphold the concept of friendly, sincere, mutually beneficial and inclusive diplomacy with neighboring countries, as well as the policy of good neighborliness, security, wealth and prosperity, and work together with Mongolia to create a new chapter of cooperation.Editor/Yang Meiling