According to figures released by the Ulaanbaatar office of the South Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), trade between the two countries jumped 43 percent year-on-year to nearly two-point-three million dollars in 2017.

Mongolia's exports to the North surged 55 percent to one-point-nine million dollars, and drove up total trade volume. Meanwhile, its imports from the North rose two percent to reach 370-thousand dollars.

KOTRA said that Mongolia's number one export item to North Korea, tobacco, accounted for over 92 percent of total exports to the country in monetary terms.

Meanwhile, medicine was found to its biggest import from the North, taking up 78 percent of the total as of November.

Deputy Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry Zagdjav Deleg announced to hold a press conference on Monday. However the Deputy Minister cancelled the meeting for uncertain reasons. According to some sources, the press conference supposed to be about Oyu Tolgoi residual deposits.

In the past, he had stated, “The Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry Sumiyabazar Dolgorsuren has a lobby group in the Parliament. This specific group initiated a plan to split the agreement and will soon present a draft agreement to the parliament. The benefits of Oyu Tolgoi are still invisible to the public and Mongolia`s economy.”

“After three years of operation, the company extracted around 3 million tons of copper extraction alone amounts to 600 thousand tons. no profit gained from this production. Rio Tinto recently raised USD 4.5 billion to finance Oyu Tolgoi. The fund has been split among the stakeholders. Not a single penny was brought into Mongolia. Mongolia`s debt. along with its interest rate, for the 34 percent ownership of Oyu Tolgoi equals around USD 2 billion. Why did company not pay off this debt?

This is the biggest reason why Oyu Tolgoi operations need to stop. However, the public had no information about it, which is regrettable. Therefore, the operation of Oyu Tolgoi must stop” said The Deputy Minister of Mining and heavy Industry at the Cabinet`s session.

Therefore, the Deputy Minister might be planning to bring up Oyu Tolgoi once again at the press conference. He also stated “Many Parliament members oppose the Oyu Tolgoi agreement, which was established in Dubai by the former PM Saikhanbileg Chimed. The current PM Khurelsukh Ukhnaa previously announced to inspect the Oyu Tolgoi agreement once he takes office. If there are illegal actions involved, they had to be settled by international regulations”.

Therefore, sources are saying that Mr. Zagdjav Deleg, the Deputy Mining minister of Khurelskh`s Cabinet, is becoming the first to take initiative in the Oyu Tolgoi issue.

There is always public speculation as to the first country which a newly appointed head-of-state or prime minister will visit. In the case of PM Khurelsukh, most people had thought that he would make his first official visit to Beijing. As Mongolia is sandwiched between the Russian Federation and China and is dependent on the former for fuel imports and on the latter for the bulk of its exports, Mr Khurelsukh's choice of South Korea, may be seen as a wise choice. Ulaanbaatar has close connections with Seoul: currently, no less than 46,000 of its citizens are living and working in South Korea.

He said, “AFCCP is currently examining whether a condition to limit supplies really created. Retail sellers do not have a legal justification for raising prices and fabricating shortages. We met with related officials of the companies which imposed limits and also sent advisory letters to importers to prevent from creating fuel shortage. If companies artificially increased demand and raised prices, they will be fined at 4-6 percent of their sales revenue of the previous year depending on offences, according to the related clauses of the laws on Competition and Offence.

Last week, Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority reported that the fuel prices would be discussed by the Public and Private Consultative Council responsible for maintaining and monitoring oil supply and prices.

Currently, our country has oil reserves equal to approximately 38 days consumption.

O.Onon

He said, “AFCCP is currently examining whether a condition to limit supplies really created. Retail sellers do not have a legal justification for raising prices and fabricating shortages. We met with related officials of the companies which imposed limits and also sent advisory letters to importers to prevent from creating fuel shortage. If companies artificially increased demand and raised prices, they will be fined at 4-6 percent of their sales revenue of the previous year depending on offences, according to the related clauses of the laws on Competition and Offence.

Last week, Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority reported that the fuel prices would be discussed by the Public and Private Consultative Council responsible for maintaining and monitoring oil supply and prices.

Currently, our country has oil reserves equal to approximately 38 days consumption.

O.Onon

The company, based in Mogoin Gol coal mine in Khuvsgul aimag, expanded its operation last year and started exporting coal to China.

While the southern neighbor of Mongolia received 18 thousand tons of coal from the company, Zavkhan aimag purchased 20 thousand tons and the rest was supplied to meet the local coal demand.

Founded in 1971, Mogoin Gol JSC has 70 regular employees today. In order to increase its revenue, the company needs to renovate about 70 percent of its equipment, according to CEO B.Khashbat.

The reserve of Mogoin Gol coal mine is estimated to be 12 million tons, and about 2 million tons of coal have been extracted as of today.
Kh.Aminaa

According to Perry, the US’ power grid would become vulnerable if more coal-fired power plants were to close down, a common occurrence in past years as the rise of natural gas and renewable energies has pushed many coal-reliant companies towards bankruptcy. In the Department of Energy’s view, such cleaner power sources are unreliable and, thus, put the power grid in jeopardy when events such as the 2014 polar vortex in the Arctic hike electricity demand.

To counteract the effects of such situations, the Secretary’s office suggested to strengthen power plants with fuel on site, that is coal and nuclear plants. To do so, the department issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which requested that FERC require utility companies to pay not just for the electricity they buy from power plant companies and supply to consumers, but also for the fixed costs associated with power plants that keep 90 days of fuel on site.

However, the Regulatory Commission said that Perry’s arguments were unfounded. “There is no evidence in the record to suggest that temporarily delaying the retirement of uncompetitive coal and nuclear generators would meaningfully improve the resilience of the grid. Rather, the record demonstrates that, if a threat to grid resilience exists, the threat lies mostly with the transmission and distribution systems, where virtually all significant disruptions occur. It is, after all, those systems that have faced the most significant challenges during extreme weather events,” today's decision reads.

Nevertheless, the five-member bureau said it will review the resilience of the nation’s electric grid by assessing information that should be provided within 60 days by each regional market operator and other entities that oversee the grid. Once that documentation is processed, the panel will decide whether it’ll implement new measures.

According to AP, Perry thanked the federal agency for addressing his proposal. “What is not debatable is that a diverse fuel supply, especially with onsite fuel capability, plays an essential role in providing Americans with reliable, resilient and affordable electricity, particularly in times of weather-related stress like we are seeing now,” AP quotes him as saying.

Environmental advocates, business groups, some public utility companies, as well as natural gas suppliers such as Koch Industries had previously criticized the Secretary’s proposal saying it would raise prices and disrupt electricity markets by subsidizing coal and nuclear plants with billions of dollars.

BoD Chairman of MCC M.Munkhbaatar expressed the company's stance, saying, “Government’s statement sounds like we have mutually reached to agreement and established an agreement, which is not true. No such agreement was conducted and we think we have become a victim of politics. We are deplored by the Government’s action that overrode Supreme Court’s decision. MCC competed with companies from China, Russian Federation and Kazakhstan to bring back 49 percent of EMC to Mongolia. This fact has been distorted from many sides, with suspicions circulating that have no basis in reality.”

MCC’s purchase of EMC shares brought many positive outcomes, he stressed. Specifically, 500 tenders were announced in 2017, while in 2016 just one was conducted and as a result of it, MNT 15 billion was saved, and each worker was rewarded MNT 500 thousand during New Year celebrations. Additionally, tax paid by EMC last year was 4 times more than previous year.

“We do not understand how Government can act outside the Constitution and annul the decision made by Supreme Court. We have not even received an official notice on the Government decision yet,” said Mr.Munkhbaatar.

MCC’s lawyer Batbayar mentioned that there was no deal between the Government and MCC and rights of a private organization has been seriously violated and therefore MCC has every right to protect its interests.

MCC Executive director Ts.Purevtuvshin expressed the company's intention to file a complaint to international arbitration.

“China and Russia have both been aggressively accumulating their official gold reserves over the last 10 - 15 years,” he said, adding that only a decade ago each of them held around or less than 400 tons. “But now both these nations hold a combined 3670 tons of gold.”

“Interestingly, both Russia and China publicize and promote their accumulations of gold and publicly refer to gold as a strategic monetary asset. They make no secret of this. But on the flipside, the US does the opposite, and constantly downplays the strategic role of gold.”

According to Manly, for Russia and China gold is the only strategic monetary asset that could provide independence from the US dollar.

Manly said the sides could conceivably be holding a lot more gold than they declare in their official reserves due to many channels through which they could buy the precious metal.

“If China and Russia combined showed that they held more gold on a combined basis than the US, this would, even symbolically, be a blow to the US dollar and to the position of the US in the global economy,” the expert concluded.

The 22 defendants include the ex-head of PetroVietnam Construction, Trinh Xuan Thanh, and a senior Communist Party official.

Germany says Mr Thanh was abducted from a park in Berlin last July, but Hanoi insists he returned home voluntarily.

He is accused of corruption and could face the death penalty if found guilty.

The German government described Mr Thanh's suspected abduction by Vietnamese spies as a "scandalous violation" of its sovereignty. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it evoked "thriller movies about the Cold War".

Also on trial is Dinh La Thang, a former Politburo member and one of the most senior Communist Party officials to go on trial in decades. He is accused of economic mismanagement and faces up to 20 years in jail.

Some of the former executives, who are alleged to have caused massive losses at PetroVietnam, could face the death penalty if convicted of the most serious offences.

Dinh La Thang is one of the most senior Communist Party officials to go on trial in decades
The government's official news website posted about the trial which is due to last until 21 January.

It said that 12 defendants are accused of "violation of state regulations on economic management causing serious consequences" and eight are accused of embezzlement. Some are accused of both.

The case comes amid a massive anti-corruption crackdown in Vietnam, one of Asia's most corrupt nations. It is ranked 113th out of 176 countries in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index.

The government has vowed to tackle the issue in order to boost economic growth. In September, the former head of a major Vietnamese bank was sentenced to death for fraud.

But analysts say the crackdown, while tackling corruption, has also mainly targeted opponents of Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.