As a part of the conference, Minister U.Enkhtuvshin met with First Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the China’s Communist Party Wang Huning to discuss some aspects of mutual cooperation and current challenging issues of cooperation between the two countries.

U.Enktuvshin pointed out that the government of Mongolia is ready to closely cooperate with Chinese authorities to make next year’s meeting of the council of mineral resources, energy and infrastructure cooperation between the two countries mutually beneficial and to implement projects that will have significant impact on the two nations’ economic development.

The Deputy Prime Minister asked Huning to focus on accelerating projects that will be implemented with Chinese non-refundable aid and soft loans, as well as on arranging a meeting on the non-refundable aid of two billion CNY that China’s President Xi Jinping offered during his visit to Mongolia in 2014. The Mongolian side is keen to start negotiating about making amendments to an intergovernmental agreement on border checkpoints and their procedures signed by the two governments in 2004, and addressing the border issues regarding the slow passage of trucks carrying coal from Mongolia to China.

Huning stated that as China has outlined to carry out open relations and cooperation with the world’s countries, especially with neighbor countries under the country’s strategic plan created by China’s Communist Party during its 19th national congress, held from October 18 to 24, there will be new collaboration opportunities between the two countries.

The Chinese official stated that he hopes that the two nations will develop mutually beneficial economic cooperation, as well as humanitarian cooperation. He added that the two governments should work together to increase the current trade turnover of 4.6 billion USD between the two countries to 10 billion USD by 2020, but noted that it will depend on the global market.

He stressed, “When implementing projects and programs between the two countries, China abides by the statement by Xi Jinping that China will respect Mongolia’s stance and interests, but the two countries face challenges of cooperation due to some misunderstandings between our two nations.”

Huning said that state authorities in charge of border, customs, mining, export and import will work to address challenging issues between the two countries, and this matter will be discussed during the next meeting of China-Mongolia intergovernmental commission.

Even though in 2013 the bank announced it would stop financing coal-fired generation projects, oil and gas investments still account for about 2% of its $280-billion asset base.

"We're determined to work with all of you to put the right policies in place, get market forces moving in the right direction, put the money on the table, and accelerate action," Kim said in a speech delivered in Paris. "That's the only way we can meet the commitments we made two years ago, and finally begin to win the battle against climate change."

The head of the World Bank is attending, together with dozens of government and industry leaders from different countries, an international climate summit being hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. The meeting marks the second anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Kim also explained that his organization is on track to meet its target of 28% of its lending going to climate action by 2020, as well as the goals of its Climate Change Action Plan – developed following the Paris Agreement.

According to the exec, starting next year, the World Bank will begin reporting greenhouse gas emissions from the investment projects it finances in key emissions-producing sectors, such as energy. It will also be applying a shadow price on carbon in the economic analysis of all IBRD/IDA projects in key high-emitting sectors.

Kim said that bolder announcements surrounding the Washington-based development bank’s path towards a greener future will be made at the 24th Conference of Parties, which will take place in Poland in 2018.

Sberbank, which holds half of all Russian retail deposits, and Alibaba, which recorded $547bn of gross merchandise volume last fiscal year, had planned to bring that clout to bear in an ecommerce push in Russia, where more than half the 140m population use the internet daily. 

The proposed tie-up was an attempt to leverage state-run Sberbank’s vast client base with the Chinese ecommerce juggernaut to sell items to customers through the bank’s app.

But the companies abandoned the discussions after falling out over how it would work, the people said. 

Sberbank said: “We don’t comment on rumours.” Alibaba declined to comment. 

Herman Gref, Sberbank’s chief executive, is friendly with Alibaba founder Jack Ma and has long been keen for the bank to move into technology-dominated sectors, which he sees as essential to stay relevant in a digital world. Last month, he said the bank would prioritise moves into ecommerce and medicine in addition to finance. 

“About 50 per cent of businesses [in Russia] work in trade and it’s all intermediary functions. With the growth of ecommerce all physical intermediaries will be a thing of the past” in five or six years, Mr Gref said. 

In August, however, Sberbank announced a new joint venture with Yandex, the Russian search engine group, that is trying to turn Yandex.Market, a shopping comparison site, into a fully fledged ecommerce company. The bank invested Rbs30bn at a valuation of Rbs60bn ($1bn) and expects to conclude the deal by the end of the year. 

A person briefed on the discussions said Mr Gref turned to Yandex after talks with Alibaba fell through over who would control the joint venture, which Sberbank saw as an attempt to gain access to its customer database without offering much in return.

But another person familiar with the companies’ thinking said the talks fell through later, after Sberbank invested in the Yandex joint venture and tried to partner it with Alibaba. “Alibaba doesn’t want to work with some comparison website,” the person said. 

Russia is one of the biggest markets for AliExpress, Alibaba’s cross-border ecommerce business selling from China into international markets. Cross-border retail grew 37 per cent last year to more than Rbs300bn ($5bn), about a third of the total online market.

Alibaba is holding early-stage discussions with other potential partners in Russia, but “it has to be a deal that makes sense”, the person said.

Over the 11 months of 2017, the sector accumulated MNT1,416 trillion to the state budget with nine types of taxes, fees and royalties. It shows an increase of MNT764 billion or two-fold against the same period of previous year.

In the past ten months, mining and extractive industries produced 40 million tons of coal, 1 million ton of copper concentrate, 17.4 tons of gold, 4.7 thousand tons of molybdenum concentrate, 6.7 million tons of iron ore, 3 million tons of iron ore concentrate, 104 thousand tons of fluorspar, 17 thousand tons of spar concentrate and 69 thousand tons of zinc concentrate.

Moreover, the export of mining products made up 78.8 percent of the country’s gross export.

As of December 11, 2017, 7.14 million barrel or 968 thousand tons of crude oil were extracted, of which 7.06 million barrel or 960 thousand tons of crude oil were exported, accumulating MNT178.7 billion to the state budget.

Within the framework of IMF Extended Fund Facility, it was decided to increase rates of excise duties on petroleum and diesel fuel stage by stage in July and October of 2017. With its resolution dated November 15, 2017, the Government decided to increase the excise duty on petroleum with up to 90 octane, which will be imported through Sukhbaatar, Zamyn-Uud and Ereentsav border checkpoints, by MNT30,000 per ton, the duty on petroleum with 90 octane and higher by MNT50,000 per ton and the duty on diesel fuel by MNT100,000 per ton. The resolution came into force from November 30.  
As of December 5, Mongolia had a 38-day reserve of oil products for domestic need.

The floating photovoltaic power station, whose construction began back in July at a cost of $151 million, is set to become fully operational by May 2018. According to the company, this is the world’s biggest plant of its kind. It features panels fixed to floats on the surface of a lake, which formed after a coal mine collapsed.

In a press release, the clean-energy firm said that the station will avoid the use of about 53,000 tonnes of standard coal and reduce emissions by about 199,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide. It is also expected to meet the electricity demand of about 94,000 urban and rural families.

China Three Gorges Chairman, Lu Chun, said in the same media statement that this would be not only the largest but also the "most intelligent solar power project with the most advanced technology in the world."

The release also highlighted that annual tax payment for the PV project will amount to about $3.77 million per year, which would benefit local governments from a financial point of view but also from an ecological perspective. “[It would] change the ‘subsidence area’ of coal mining from ‘burden’ to ‘fortune,’ from ‘underground’ to ‘above the ground’ and change the development approach from ‘black’ to ‘green’.”

The funds will be used to expedite development of Aspire’s 90% owned Nuurstei Coking Coal Project in Mongolia.

Aspire aims to take the project into production within 18 months.

The company is now planning to undertake a drilling and exploration program at the Nuurstei project.

Rights issue details

Eligible shareholders had the opportunity to subscribe for six new shares for every five shares held at an issue price of $0.012 each.

The rights issue was fully underwritten by Patersons Securities Limited and sub-underwritten by the company’s major shareholder Noble Group (SGX:CGP).

Noble subscribed for the full amount of its entitlement (circa $2.97 million) and took up a further amount of $0.59 million on a priority sub-underwriting basis.

This takes Noble’s voting power in the company to 19.9% on an undiluted basis.

Drilling and exploration program commencing

Aspire has planned a $2 million drilling and exploration program at the Nuurstei Coking Coal Project.

The program aims to increase current resources and establish an ore reserve, which will then lead to a new resource model planned to be completed in the first quarter of 2018.

Capital costs for the development of Nuurstei have been further refined, with the current estimate of US$13 to US$14 million to be confirmed in the feasibility study process.

The end objective of these studies is to confirm an economically viable mining operation commencing within an estimated 18 month period.

David Paull, managing director, said: “Further to our announcement on Tuesday 5 December, we are pleased to have successfully raised the full amount of $16.5 million from the fully underwritten rights issue.

“The underwriting was supported by a strong panel of institutional sub-underwriters seeking to position themselves as shareholders and we welcome them in that capacity.

“Our focus is now squarely on confirming the feasibility and commencing the development of the Nuurstei Coking Coal Project.”

Debt reduction on track

Aspire intends to pay $0.19 million of the funds raised under the rights issue to Noble which, when combined with Noble’s participation in the rights issue, will result in a total reduction of $3.75 million in the amount owing to Noble.

This completes the first of a further series of transactions designed to reduce the existing US$6.65 million debt owing under the Noble Facility to US$1.8 million.

The MSE ALL Index decreased by 0.19 percent to stand at 1,222.67 points. The MSE market cap stands at MNT2,578,580,001,601

With an aim to increase number of passengers and flow of freight transport from Altanbulag checkpoint to Kyakhta, ‘Ulaanbaatar Railway’ Joint Venture decided to open this express train. The express trains N305 and N306 will travel in this route three times a week or on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays. Previously it used to take about 40 hours to travel to Irkutsk whereas the express will reach its destination within 24 hour stoping at three stations: Sukhbaatar, Naushki and Ulan-Ude. 

"Beginning from November, 2014 citizens of Mongolia and Russia are allowed to mutually travel without visa for three months. Thus Altanbulag border checkpoint’s load has been increased considerably. In order to create condition for convenient, comfortable and cheap travel to passengers the company launched this express train. I believe it will give stimulus to tourism development of Mongolia" remarked D.Jigjidnyamaa, Chairman of the ‘Ulaanbaatar Railway’ Joint Venture.

Third Secretary of Embassy of the Russian Federation in Mongolia M.B.Mashaninov said "As a result of visa free travel for three months, people to people relations and economic cooperation of the two countries are broadening. I am confident that the express train will intensify the relations more". 

The express train with six passenger coaches is expected to carry 21.5 thousand passengers a year. Also it is possible to add coaches up to 18 during special times, said the officials.

Single ticket price is MNT118 thousand for adults and MNT 71 thousand for children.

The memorandum was signed by Ambassador of Mongolia to Italy Ts.Jambaldorj and Paolo Emilio Signorini, President of the Port Authority of Genoa and Savona.

Following the signing ceremony, the sides exchanged views on bilateral cooperation in maritime transport, access to seaport, usage of ships and customs and logistics.