“Are you all here, comrades?” The room was full of the highest members of the government. They did not look happy but tired and preoccupied with not very pleasant thoughts. No section of the government was doing well, so, the mood of the leaders was kind of dark. Some were doing a little better than the others but not by much. Money was needed, jobs, tourism, crafts, factories, big constructions, export, and the small businesses should be more significant than a bakery, a butcher shop, or a five-tables teashop. And, no matter how you slice it, none of it was in the cards. There was no local initiative, and the foreign investments were still foreign, and far away. No expatriates were coming back from America or Western Europe and starting a successful business back home. Expatriates were coming back from America or Western Europe and going back to the steppes to lead the lazy life and drink a lot of kumis. It did not look like Mongols were business savvy or even interested in that. It did not look like they even cared. The President could see the worry and the deep disappointment in everyone’s eyes. He knew that they tried their best yet, they failed in keeping the country afloat. Mongolia was sinking and fast, and no one knew where the bottom was or how it looked. Yet, they were rushing to the bottom just to see who would get there first. Even the top government officials could not bail out in time. Some could not bail out at all. The dead weight was too heavy. An economic boost was needed urgently, now but no one knew how to create one. What do you do? What did the others do? When? How? So, the mood was gloomy, but even the light at the end of the tunnel could not help. There was no light anywhere but a very dark tunnel with no end. It was dark, empty, and depressing.
“How is the economy now? Tell me the truth, please.” The President could not be soft now; not to them and not to himself. How would that help?
“Our economy is at the lowest, Mr. President.” That was the Prime Minister taking the first blow. “We cannot meet any of the payments, and the debt becomes deeper and deeper. There is an interest, you know. Soon, it would be as big as the obligation itself. You know, the Russian payment, the World Bank payment, the International Monetary Fund, and a few others. We cannot collect taxes because half of the country is in the steppes and they don’t work. So, what taxes can we collect? It cost us more to go after these people that we could get from them. We have no tourism now, and we do not sell anything to the West. We have no hard currency, and our currency is worthless. We cannot sell any of our natural resources; we do not have the miners. We could hire some migrant workers, but we have nothing to attract them. We cannot offer good money or even decent living conditions. They do not take what we offer. It is not enough even by the lowest international standards. The Minister of Industry was working on a plan to lease out our copper mines and some other wells and mines to the Japanese and the Germans. Everyone liked the plan, but we have to provide the workers. They do not want to bring the workers from the oversees. That is too expensive for them. If they do, they will not pay us enough to like the plan. They will provide the management though, the machinery and the marketing and we have to provide the mines and the miners. Good deal for us but we failed to deliver. We need to attract migrant workers to make it work. What do we offer? We have nothing, and they make more money even in Russian not mentioning the West. Everyone wants to work in the West, legally or not. Mostly illegally… Even the illegals there make more money than we could offer.”
“What if we bring over the workers from Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kalmykia, and the other former Soviet Republics? They have a very high unemployment rate. The migrant labor there left a lot of local without work. That’s universal now. What if we bring their families too? Well, not right away but we could promise that. That could be like an extra incentive.” That was the Minister of Labor.