ULAN BATOR, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The Mongolian government on Wednesday banned exporting live livestock animals and pushed forward plans to improve its meat processing capacity, according to the government's press office.
"Previous governments' decisions on exporting live livestock animals have been overturned," the government's press office said in a statement. "Instead of it, Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh has ordered relevant officials to pay special attention to increasing the capacity of existing meat processing plants and building new ones in order to raise meat exports."
Animal husbandry is the backbone of the landlocked country's economy as nearly 40 percent of the country's nomad population depends on animal husbandry for their livelihood.
As one of the last nomadic countries in the world, the Asian country has more than 66.46 million livestock animals as of the end of 2018, according to the country's National Statistics Office.
Mongolian Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Chultem Ulaan said in May that the country earned around 190 million U.S. dollars from meat exports in 2018, with most of the revenue coming from its exports to China.
