On 13 March 2019 the president of the National Council Marina Carobbio Guscetti (SP, TI) welcomed the president of the Mongolian parliament, Gombojav Zandanshatar, to Bern. Mr Zandanshatar was also welcomed by the vice president of the Council of States, Hans Stöckli (SP, BE) and the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Council of States, Filippo Lombardi (CVP, TI).

​On 13 March the president of the National Council, Marina Carobbio Guscetti, welcomed to Bern Gombojav Zandanshatar, who was elected president of the Mongolian parliament on 1 February of this year. This was Mr Zandanshatar’s first official visit abroad as parliamentary president and provided an opportunity to renew relations between the parliaments of Switzerland and Mongolia.

Among the main issues discussed by Ms Carobbio Guscetti and Mr Zandanshatar was cooperation between the two countries and their economic, political and cultural relations. Following the talks, Mr Zandanshatar and his delegation met the first vice president of the Council of States, Hans Stöckli, for an official working lunch, and the president of the Council of States Foreign Affairs Committee, Filippo Lombardi. Their discussions helped to further strengthen the links between Switzerland and Mongolia.

The Swiss Parliamentary Services and the secretariat of the Mongolian parliament are currently jointly engaged in a technical cooperation project on public policy assessment, part of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s support for the Mongolian parliament.

Besides the official visit to the Swiss parliament, during his stay in Bern Mr Zandanshatar also met Pascale Baeriswyl, State Secretary and head of the Directorate of Political Affairs at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and Daniela Stoffel, State Secretary for International Finance at the Federal Department of Finance.

Relations between Switzerland and Mongolia date back to the late 1950s, when the first Swiss businesses set up commercial relations with the Asian country. Switzerland was Mongolia’s first non-socialist commercial partner. It officially recognised the Democratic Republic of Mongolia on 20 May 1964. Relations have become closer since Mongolia embraced democracy in the early 1990s. When Mongolia suffered some particularly harsh winters at the end of that decade, Switzerland provided humanitarian aid, and since 2002 this support has taken the form of development cooperation.