The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry informed that twelve new cashmere dehairing plants were under construction. Thus, Mongolia will have 43 plants in total once they start operating.

Mongolia produces 48 percent of the total raw cashmere in the world. But only 10% of processed cashmere is dehaired and exported. Even though the capacity to produce 6,017 tons of dehaired cashmere is installed in 40 plants, only 25% is being used.

According to the Government’s adjustment that requires hair content in goat cashmere which is crossed the border for export and import must not exceed 0.3%, only dehaired cashmere is allowed to export. As a result of that, the export volume increased and Mongolian companies started to cooperate with global TOP brands. For instance, 90% of dehaired cashmere is exported to Italy and about 20 Mongolian enterprises launched cooperation with TOP brands, such as "Loro Piana", "Falconeri", "Chanel", and "Schneider".

As of November 2022, the export volume of dehaired cashmere has reached 809.1 tons, up 2.2 times compared with the same period of the previous year. In addition, the average price for dehaired cashmere was USD 91.1 per kg in 2021, while in 2022, it raised to USD 108.3.

Minister of Finance B. Javkhlan and the World Bank Country Manager Andrei Mikhnev signed the Financing Agreement for the Smart Government II Project today. The project is funded with a USD 40.7 million credit from the World Bank.

The project objectives include strengthening policies and regulations for digital transformation, upgrading the common infrastructure, and enhancing the usability and efficiency of digital public services.

The Smart Government I Project ensured the continuity and security of digital public services while digitalizing 112 services of 12 organizations and helping citizens and businesses save MNT 48.4 billion.

Smart Government I Project: https://www.smart.gov.mn/en/

“Mongolian Stock Exchange” JSC commenced secondary market trading of shares with the alphabet code of “MSE” yesterday.

The Financial Regulatory Commission (FRC) considered the primary market trading of “Mongolian Stock Exchange” shares successful following its official letter No. 1/61, dated January 5, 2023, and approved the commencement of secondary market trading of shares of the company on January 9. FRC informed allowing investors to receive the remaining balance for their unallocated orders through their brokerage firms starting today.

The “Mongolian Stock Exchange” JSC raised MNT 57.8 Billion through 7.417 orders, which exceeded its initial target of MNT 11.9 billion by 4.8 times during its primary market trading. FRC reviewed the subscriptions according to 7.13 of the Regulation on Security Registration and issued a final report.

Inner Mongolia, one of China's major energy bases, is expected to produce 1.2 billion tonnes of coal in 2022, according to an official with the local energy bureau.

The region is the second largest coal producing base in China only after neighboring Shanxi. National statistics showed that Inner Mongolia's coal output totaled 1.07 billion tonnes in the first 11 months, up 12.1% from the year earlier, accounting for 26% of the country's total over the period.

The region's full-year production is likely to account for one fourth of China's total, and more than 60% of production would be delivered outside to 25 provinces. Both production and outbound deliveries would maintain double-digit growths and hit new highs of all time, said Wang Jinbao, leader of the region's energy bureau.

In 2022, the region has undertaken to deliver 945 million tonnes of coal to power plants via medium- and long-term contracts, accounting for 36% of the national contract supplies, Wang said. The quantity topped the country and made Inner Mongolia as the key supporter for the country's energy security.

Meanwhile, Inner Mongolia is the key power producer in China. As of the end of 2022, the region had 173 GW of installed power generation capacity, including 107.84 GW of coal-based capacity and 65 GW of renewables.

After integrating 9.64 GW of capacity into the grid this year, Inner Mongolia has become the fourth in China to have coal-based capacity exceeding 100 GW, after Shandong, Guangdong and Jiangsu.

The region's power generation rose 7.8% on the year to 646.5 TWh in 2022. In the case of its own supply tension and surged fuel cost, it still managed to maintain a 7% rise in outbound transmissions to 264 TWh, which the highest in the country for 18 years in a row. The power is delivered to the north and east of China and as well as neighboring Mongolia.

The region also pays high attention to development of the renewable sector. It has poured 130 billion yuan to the sector in 2022, more than five times the size of 2021. Its renewable capacity, 65 GW, accounted for 38.3% of the region's power mix, with the proportion up by 3 percentage points from the year ago.

The region's wind capacity ranks second in the country and is on track to get the first place soon as the nation has planned to build four wind & solar bases in the region over the 14th Five-Year period.

(Writing by Alex Guo Editing by Tammy Yang)

Mongolians consume three times less milk and dairy products on a daily basis than it is recommended by the World Health Organization. Therefore, increasing the consumption of milk and dairy products and opening up the opportunity for people to get adequate nutrients through their daily food is the primary goal of “SUU” JSC, Mongolia's first dairy factory.

In 2022, “SUU” JSC purchased a total of 21.2 million liters of milk from its suppliers and provided a direct income of MNT 27.8 billion. Compared with the same period of the previous year, the amount has increased by 62.3 percent. Also, 60% of the total milk bonus is given to the producers and suppliers of the company. In addition, this year, 1,380 tons of bran worth more than MNT 800 million were distributed by the company to support herders.

The first cooperative in the country “Ar Gunt Martsad” was established in 2020 within the framework of the company’s goal of increasing milk production and enhancing the quality of raw milk. Today, the number of such cooperatives has increased to 12. With the help of the company’s equipment, the cooperatives have become able to supply 2.5 times more and better quality milk to the factory. The establishment of the cooperatives has been able to replace the older practices of milk production that used to be done manually with technological advancements, increasing productivity. For example, the conditions have been created for the suppliers to give their milk to the cooperative, and the cooperative will deliver the milk to the standard refrigerator of "SUU" JSC. In this way, it became an important practice to save time and money for the suppliers.

Taking into account many factors such as the weather, traditional methods of animal husbandry, and Mongolian people's mentality and behavior, cooperative activities were introduced. In addition, the good practices of Japan were studied and implemented in the rural aimags. An example of this is the recently established "Bayan Tolgoi" cooperative. "SUU" JSC in cooperation with "Makubetsu" agricultural cooperative of Japan introduced the most modern milk production practices in the cooperatives. Developed countries develop cooperative systems in areas with four seasons of the year. With the creation of a unified system of cooperatives, the amount and quality of milk will be improved, and the capacity to receive milk will be expanded even more.

The cooperative system has the advantages such as improving the quality of milk supplied to milk factories, ensuring the implementation of a quality-based pricing policy, introducing appropriate agricultural practices to dairy farmers, improving the equipment, increasing the number of intensive dairy farms, decreasing the dependence on the milk production season, and providing the opportunity to get discounted loans from domestic banks and financial institutions.

At the initiative of the President of Mongolia, U. Khurelsukh, the “Food Supply and Security” national campaign was launched in 2022. Moreover, the Government of Mongolia declared 2022 as the year to support the development of cooperatives. In accordance with this, the authorities of some aimags also announced 2022 as the year to support green development and wealth creators.

In addition to increasing the participation of private sector organizations in the implementation of government policies on food and agriculture and the Law on Animal Genetic Resources, the preparation and supply of raw materials for strategic food products in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner has become an important issue for national producers to pay attention to.

About “SUU” JSC

"SUU" JSC, Mongolia's first milk factory, was established in 1958 with a capacity of producing 30 tons of milk to provide milk and dairy products to the population of the capital. Now the company has more than 500 employees and the capacity to produce 70 types of 130-180 tons of milk and dairy products per day. The factory collects milk from the doorsteps of more than 2,500 suppliers in over 30 areas around Ulaanbaatar and in Tuv, Darkhan, Selenge, Orkhon, and Khentii aimags during the four seasons. Since launching the program to establish cooperatives for milk suppliers in 2022, the company has established 12 cooperatives and is planning to increase it to 22-25 this year. Moreover, the company established “Max Agro”, an intensive animal husbandry farm, in 2015 and became the leader in this field.

The copper price jumped to a more than six-month high on Monday as demand prospects brightened after China reopened its borders.

Copper for delivery in March rose 3% on the Comex market in New York, touching $4.03 per pound, or $8,866 per tonne.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange hit its highest since June 23, 2022 at $8,711 earlier in the session.

The most-traded March copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed up 1.5% at 66,090 yuan ($9,750.52) a tonne.

Mainland China opened sea and land crossings with Hong Kong and ended a requirement for incoming travelers to quarantine.

The reopening of China’s borders marks the end of Covid Zero, a strategy that left the world’s second-biggest economy isolated for three years and weighed heavily on the economy.

On Sunday, more than 36,000 people from Hong Kong departed the city via its land borders, all but one of which go directly to mainland China, according to government data. That’s eight times as many as the departures made a day before and the biggest outflow since Feb. 3, 2020, according to government statistics and data compiled by Webb-Site.com.

“The events of last weekend have seemingly changed many people’s views on the global economy…This in turn has led to talk of green shoots of recovery, full steam ahead for the Chinese, and thus the global economy,” Malcolm Freeman, a director at broker Kingdom Futures, said in a note.

The US dollar eased on China’s reopening of its borders and rising hopes that the US Federal Reserve would slow the pace of its interest rate hikes following the December jobs report.

(With files from Reuters and Bloomberg)