Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia recorded 488 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, raising the national tally to 462,097, the country's Ministry of Health said Sunday.

Meanwhile, two more COVID-19 patients died in the past day, taking the national death toll to 2,087, said the ministry.

So far, 66.8 percent of the country's 3.4 million people have received two COVID-19 vaccine doses, while more than 1 million people aged over 18 received one booster.

The country started to administer the fourth shot in January on a voluntary basis, and over 96,100 people have got it.

Nearly ten years ago, when the first edition of the Mongolian Grand Prix had just ended, we met a very young girl at the edge of the Mongolian steppes, on the road to Lake Khovsgol. Bavuudorj Baasankhuu (MGL) was then only a dozen years old and was far from imagining that at the beginning of the 2022 season she would climb the podia of the World Judo Tour twice.

Bavuudorj Baasankhuu, bronze medallist in Tel Aviv

"I was messing around with my friends in Murun City and one day we tried judo instead of being all over the place. At that time I didn't really know what it was but I tried and it was fun. Never would I ever have imagined going further."

Yet, further is the great adventure that she is living now. After two participations in 2021, Paris and Baku, where she did not rank, she has just won the silver medal at the famous Paris Grand Slam in early February 2022 and the bronze medal in Tel Aviv, in quick succession, both in the -48kg weight division.

When we see the training conditions of Bavuudorj at the time, we can only admire the progress made. With a white belt that hadn’t yet found meaning for her, she trained in a classroom turned into a dojo, on a torn and patched yellow truck tarpaulin. On the wall was a large poster of the local judo team and pictures of basketball, because the classroom, as crazy as it was and as small as it was, also served as a basketball court.

Bavuudorj Baasankhuu (second from the left) in Murun City

"I didnt’t know what a tatami was when I started, nor even a judogi. Our coach, Davaadorj Sensei, was teaching us the first basic judo techniques. One day he told us that someone from abroad was coming and that he had a special present for us."

When the IJF experts visited, they actually came with some judogi as part of the Judo in Schools programme and the least that can be said is that Bavuudorj was all smiles. There were good reasons for that. This gift meant a lot to her. Was it this visit, which lasted only a couple of hours, that made her want to go further? She answered that.

Bavuudorj Baasankhuu (second from the left) receiving her new judogi

"I will remember that day forever. It was my first judogi and it was snow white. That is the image that I have in mind. It was after receiving it that I started to consider that maybe judo was something I wanted to get involved with more seriously. A little later I went to the Junior National Championships. It was in the countryside and I was wearing my brand new judogi, of course. I won my first bronze medal. Since then, judo has been a big part of my life."

We could wonder if this judogi was really something that triggered her desire to win, but she confirms it, even if performing was already present in her mind. What is certain is that despite, or perhaps thanks to, the living and training conditions she faced, she now has a will to win that could take her even higher.

Before she continues her journey, we asked her where the judogi is now, "I gave it away. It's a little torn now, but in Mongolia we have that tradition to give away things that helped us to be successful. It brings luck. So I know that the young generation of Murun City will have luck carried on by the judogi I received and it will also bring me luck."

Mongolian medallists in Paris

Her next steps? "The world championships and the Olympics of course." On the tatami in Paris or Tel Aviv, the Mongolian steppes were far away, geographically, but there is no doubt that the wind of the great outdoors was blowing hard in the judoka's mind, bring her body extra strength. 43rd in the world before the Tel Aviv Grand Slam, she will climb a few steps in the rankings for sure. Her journey is only beginning on the international scene and it can now continue with the memory of her younger years and that of her first two podia on the world circuit. Have a beautiful journey Bavuudorj and keep smiling like you did ten years ago and here on the podium.

The Adventurists is a company located in Bristol which calls itself “the planet’s greatest purveyor of chaos and adventure”. What was once a one-man team is now an organisation of over 500 people working on a variety of challenges for budding travellers from all over the world. One of these is The Mongol Rally. “This is 10,000 miles of chaos across mountain, deserts and steppe on roads ranging from bad to not-a-road in a tiny 1000cc car you bought from a scrapyard for £4.60,” The Adventurists said of the road trip. It added: “There’s no backup. There’s no set route. There’s no guarantee you’ll make it to the end. It’s just you, your rolling turd and planet-earth sized bucket of adventure.” So, what kind of adventures await on one of the greatest road trips in the world?

Born and bred in New Plymouth, New Zealand, Hayden was living on the other side of the world, in Europe, and having a beer with a childhood friend of his, when he first heard about the Mongol Rally.

“A good mate of mine from school, called Alistair, mentioned the idea to me and I said yes on the spot – before I really knew what it was about,” he explained.

“The team was just the two of us to start with, and we had others join us later on for portions of the trip.”

Hayden described himself as “the useless one”, while Alistair was “the leader”.

Another who joined the duo for the majority of the trip was a friend of Alistair’s, Holly, who is now Hayden’s wife.

“Alistair asked me if he could bring a friend and told me she was cute,” Hayden explained.

“So naturally I said yes. I had six weeks of intense travelling to get to know her while she was with us on the trip.”

The three of them – and at one time four when another friend joined them for a week – fitted into a Nissan Micra, which they had bought second-hand from London at the start of the trip and painted red.

As there was no set plan for the three adventurists to follow, they chose “the most interesting route we could think of”, going through the following countries: Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Hungry, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Across Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan, Usbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

It was in Kazakhstan that the Nisaan Micra broke down, meaning the team weren’t able to make it to Mongolia and complete the trip.

“We were pretty rough to the little Nissan Micra,” Hayden confessed.

“We had a bit of an unspoken rule on the trip, that if something was a bad idea, we should do it, every time.”

In total, Hayden said the team “had 14 flat tyres, our fuel pump broke off the mounts inside the fuel tank, and when I drove through a bonnet-deep puddle one day an electrical sensor broke, sending us into limp mode”.

“Luckily our team leader was an aircraft mechanic, so I just watched him fix everything while chatting up my future wife,” he added.

Another time, when driving up a remote road off the Pamir Highway, which traverses the Pamir Mountains through Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, the Nissan Micra suffered three flat tyres in under 24 hours.

“Once again the locals helped us fix our tyres and gave us a place to stay for the night,” Hayden explained.

“We were entertained with tales of when the locals were in the Opium running business – all in broken English over some local vodka. The hospitality was amazing.”

Since the locals were so warm and welcoming, Hayden and his team rarely felt unsafe throughout the whole trip.

The New Zealander said: “All the people we met along the way were very friendly and were always trying to help us. It’s unbelievable how people with so little can be happy to give so much to help a stranger.

“The least safe we ever felt was when dealing with police and government officials, to be honest.”

The Nissan Micra seemed to be what put the team in danger more than anything else. Hayden went on to describe another car fiasco, saying: “When we started the trip, we had all of our bags stacked high on the roof, but we found the car couldn’t travel over 50mph on the motorways.

“We figured it was because of the wind, and so we tried strapping the bags to the boot to make the car more aerodynamic. We were able to get to 62mph with one simple modification.”

But despite this, the Pamir Highway still proved difficult, and the car “was so low on power, we couldn’t get out of first gear”.

Hayden continued: “While we were going up the final hill we were foot flat, struggling to keep the car moving. If we stopped we would have had to turn around and get another run-up.

“The car started overheating, so I climbed out the window and stood on the bonnet, pouring cold water over the radiator to keep the car cool. It was actually pretty safe because we were going so slowly – it worked a treat and we made it up and over in one go.”

In Kazakhstan, the team’s final destination, Alistair “accidentally crashed into a hidden rock”, which ripped the car’s front wheel off.

“We had to tie it back together with ratchet straps to try and carry on,” Hayden explained.

“We only made it another few days of driving before the car completely gave way. We never made it to Mongolia and may have to do the trip again.”

But that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Hayden, having described the trip as “a truly unforgettable experience”.

“I have travelled a lot and this is by far the most memorable trip I have done yet,” he said.

The 34-year-old thought back to “one of the most memorable days” in Kyrgyzstan when the team had just made their camp on the side of a mountain, but were told by a group of locals who walked past that “we weren’t allowed to sleep there”.

Hayden said: “We thought we were in trouble, but once they found a translator, it turned out that it was their farm we had stopped on and they insisted we had dinner with them and stayed in their guest house.

“We packed up and followed them to their house for a big feast, lots of vodka and basically a house party. We stayed in an open sided guest house, with views out over the gardens and tried their local breakfast of fresh goat’s milk and butter in the morning. An unforgettable experience.”

But despite the countless issues with the Nissan Micra, the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan was Hayden’s favourite part of the trip.

“Big open mountains, a true feeling of remoteness, super friendly and hospitable locals and just one big adventure,” he recalled.

Climate change is a risk multiplier, threatening to undermine the progress achieved in promoting development over the last few decades. The education sector, however, has been underrepresented in global climate change discussions. Indeed, no single National Adaptation Programme of Action (or the subsequent National Adaptation Plans) in the East Asia and Pacific region highlights the education sector as being at risk. However, in the 2018 climate change negotiations, delegates recognized the importance of including education in the Nationally Determined Contributions of countries, highlighting the increasing significance of exploring the links between education and climate change (UNFCCC, 2018).

The current study was launched by UNICEF with the overall aim of gathering evidence on impacts of climate change on education sector, enhancing awareness and understanding among key stakeholders, enabling cross-country comparison of climate change actions in education, and facilitating sharing of good practices and lessons learned in the region.

The study indicates that climate trends, including more extreme winter conditions (leading to more severe dzuds and greater use of coal which in turn leads to air pollution), heavier summer precipitation (leading to flash floods), and more extreme summers (leading to both more severe droughts and more severe dzuds), all have a significant impact on Mongolia’s education sector. The main impacts include reduced access to education – especially in the harsh, cold winters when roads are impassable or too dangerous, and after flash floods when roads are destroyed – as well as missing school or dropping out of school due to health complications (particularly in winter). These trends result in lower attendance rate, and potentially impact learning outcomes. Livelihood concerns are also widespread with herding families being particularly dependent on favourable weather conditions to make a living and obtain sufficient income to send children to school. In addition to these concerns, schools have also reported insufficient access to water and sanitation facilities, food insecurity and access to energy as important issues that affect students’ well-being during climate-related disasters.

Given the potential for climate change to hamper progress in education, education authorities need to prioritize efforts to ensure universal education through four interrelated activities:

1. Enhancing data and improving the evidence base;

2. Increase strategies to ensure continued education under a climate change scenario;

3. Improve learning to address climate change impacts;

4. Systems strengthening.

Source: UNICEF Mongolia

In January 2022, total sales of stocks reached MNT 37.7 billion, increased by MNT 5.9 billion (18.7 percent) from the previous month and increased by MNT 27.0 (3.5 times more) billion from the same period of the previous year. The number of pieces of traded securities reached 35.4 million, increased by 22.9 million pieces (2.8 times) from the previous month while it is decreased by MNT 25.4 (41.8 percent) million pieces from the same period of the previous year.

In January 2022, the average of indices of the top 20 financial markets was 42447.6 units, increased by 778.8 units from the previous month and increased by 22417.5 units from the same period of 2021.

In January 2022, the total value of joint-stock companies operating at stock markets reached MNT 5.8 trillion, decreased by MNT 171.5 billion (2.9 percent) from the previous month while it is increased by MNT 2.8 trillion (93.3 percent) from the same period of the previous year.

Source: National Statistics Office

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission warned on Friday about the associated risks the emerging metaverse technology could bring as the virtual space fever sweeps the world.

The watchdog said in a statement published on its website that some companies were engaging in illegal fund-raising, fraud, and virtual real estate speculation.

“Beware of being duped, and if you find clues of suspected illegal crimes, please actively report this to the relevant local departments,” it said.

The official warning highlighted four different ways in which fraudsters were illicitly making profits using the metaverse. The first and most common form of the scam includes projects promising high-tech integration, such as AI and virtual reality support. These projects often lure investors by promising high returns, then the fraudsters get away with the investor funds.

The second most common form of metaverse scams is blockchain play-to-earn (P2E) projects, where scammers promise high profits for investing in the native gaming token and often run away with the funds once they reach a set goal. Another scheme such projects use includes hyping up the metaverse real-estate to induce panic buying among users, the regulator said.

In China, the total addressable market for the metaverse could be worth around $8 trillion, according to Morgan Stanley.

Chinese tech giants including Tencent, Huawei, and Alibaba have all jumped in on the metaverse trend to expand their investment and influence. Despite a blanket ban on the use and mining of cryptocurrencies in the country, the Chinese authorities have shown more relaxation towards nonfungible token (NFT) projects and the metaverse. However, experts say China’s metaverse could look very different to the rest of the world due to the government’s strict rules on the technology sector and Beijing’s crypto crackdown.

New York (CNN Business)Nearly four months ago, amid a firestorm of critical coverage stemming from a whistleblower's leaks, Facebook shifted its strategic focus to building an immersive version of the internet it calls the "metaverse" and changed its company name to Meta.

This week, the company continued with its rebranding campaign. The News Feed, for years the centerpiece of the Facebook user experience and also central to some of its controversies, was rebranded simply as Feed. Its employees, previously known as Facebookers, became Metamates. And its corporate values got a refresh, too.

Gone are corporate maxims like "be bold." Instead, the company introduced guidelines such as "focus on long-term impact" and "be direct and respect your colleagues." Mark Zuckerberg, the company's cofounder and CEO, said the changes were needed because "we're now a metaverse company, building the future of social connection."

"We've already built products that are useful to billions of people, but in our next chapter we'll focus more on inspiring people as well," Zuckerberg wrote in an explanation of the new value "build awesome things."

The changes this week once again hint at the company's eagerness to turn the page and refocus its employees, and arguably the general public, on a new era of its business — one less tarnished by years of controversy.

Zuckerberg himself appears eager to turn away from some of the recent turmoil, announcing this week that Nick Clegg, formerly Meta's vice president of global affairs and communications, has been promoted to president of global affairs. Clegg's promotion will free up time for Zuckerberg to focus on the company's efforts to build new artificial and virtual reality products, Zuckerberg said.

But despite Zuckerberg's and Meta's apparent effort to "live in the future," as one of its new values dictates, the social media giant still has to wrestle with many of the same old problems that have plagued it for months or, in some cases, years. If anything, some of its challenges only seem to be getting worse.

Meta' (FB)s core advertising business faces threats from other Big Tech giants. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has filed two new complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the company's handling of misinformation. And the company continues to grapple with regulatory scrutiny.

"At the end of the day, Mark can run, but he can't hide from the regulatory pressure," Katie Harbath, a Facebook alum who helped lead the company's global election efforts until her departure last year, said of his making Clegg effectively the company's most public face on policy issues.

For a long time, it seemed like Zuckerberg and Facebook could at least find some comfort during the company's various PR crises in the resiliency of its stock. But that's no longer the case. Meta's shares have fallen more than 40% over the past six months, with much of the loss in value following a rough holiday quarter earnings report which showed, among other things, a rare lapse in user growth.

"Wall Street and the investment community [have] caught up with [the fact that] that the core business at Facebook is no longer growing, it may even be in decline at some point, and therefore Facebook has had to make an enormous pivot into a tangential, and really unrelated, space," said Gil Luria, technology strategist at investment firm D.A. Davidson.

Asked for comment about this story, Meta directed CNN Business to Zuckerberg's post about the company's changing values.

Facebook's problems continue

While Meta's announcements this week center on its vision for a new, virtual world, the company's problems continue to pile up in the real world.

On Friday, the Washington Post broke the news that two new whistleblower complaints against Meta were filed with the SEC. Andrew Bakaj, a lawyer for Whistleblower Aid, which filed the complaints, confirmed to CNN Business that they were filed on behalf of Haugen. Haugen is the former Facebook product manager who left the company last May and took with her a trove of internal documents that would later be disclosed to Congress and inform the blockbuster Facebook Papers reporting that fueled the company's prolonged PR crisis.

CNN Business obtained redacted copies of the new SEC complaints as part of a consortium of news organizations from a Congressional source, who also provided the internal documents that formed the basis of last year's Facebook Papers reporting.

The new complaints accuse the company of misleading investors about its efforts to address climate and Covid-19 misinformation on its platforms. They detail how Facebook had repeatedly touted its efforts to fight misinformation about Covid-19 and climate change and allege that internal documents indicate employees were raising concerns at the same time about such content being easily available on the platform and about shortcomings in the company's efforts to address it.

"Some investors simply will not want to invest in a company that fails to adequately address such misinformation," one of the SEC filings states. Haugen previously filed SEC complaints against Facebook related to its handling of misinformation about the 2020 Presidential election and January 6 insurrection, human trafficking on its platforms, the effects of its products on teens and more.

In a statement to CNN Business, Meta spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company has directed two billion people to authoritative public health information and used its Climate Science Center, available in more than 150 countries to provide reliable information about the climate, while working with independent fact checkers to address and remove false claims. "There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to stopping the spread of misinformation, but we're committed to building new tools and policies to combat it," Pusateri said.

The news of the SEC filings followed a slew of other headlines for the company this week. Meta agreed to pay $90 million to settle a decade-old class action lawsuit over a (now long defunct) practice that allowed the social network to track users' activity across the internet, even if they had logged out of the platform. The agreement, which also involves deleting the data it collected in this manner, is one of the biggest settlements in the company's history. Pusateri on Tuesday said the settlement "is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders and we're glad to move past this issue."

Lawmakers this week also added to the slate of proposed legislation that could affect Meta. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn proposed the Kids Online Safety Act, which would create new responsibilities for tech platforms to protect children from digital harms such as sexual exploitation, and require them to create default settings for families to protect their kids from harmful content.

But perhaps the biggest potential problem for Meta to emerge this week was an announcement by Google that it plans to develop new privacy measures that would remove the ability to track users across apps and limit the sharing of user data with third parties on Android devices.

The announcement comes after a similar move by Apple (AAPL) caused a huge hit to Meta's advertising business by giving users the chance to opt-out of being tracked by apps, thereby making it harder for Facebook to target ads. Meta's ad business is heavily dependent on small businesses "that are relying on the benefits of being able to access a lot of information about users to effectively target advertising ... without those details, advertisers are not going to pay as much money," Third Bridge Group analyst Scott Kessler said. The Apple change is expected to have a $10 billion impact on Meta's bottom line this year.

While Google (GOOG) suggested its new privacy-focused advertising system will work differently from Apple's — and a Meta executive lauded Google's "long-term, collaborative approach" to developing it — the change could still ultimately be yet another blow to Meta's core ad business.

Building out its VR efforts might help. Indeed, Meta's and Zuckerberg's focus on the company's metaverse ambitions may be an acknowledgment of the fact that its existing business is in trouble, Luria said. He noted that Zuckerberg's updates this week may be a way of communicating, both inside the company and externally, "the importance and timeliness of this pivot."

Meta is working to develop its own tech ecosystem that users will be able to access with its own Quest headsets and where it can run its own app stores, without being at the whim of companies like Apple and Google. The problem: the metaverse, and broad adoption of its related technologies by consumers and advertisers, is still years away, so that solution is unlikely to turn Meta's fortunes around anytime soon.

"In the meantime," Luria said, "if their core business is slowing down and will possibly start declining at some point, that will break Facebook's long streak of fast growth that they've had... since they've gone public."

CNN's Brian Fung contributed to this report.

China’s state planner will take steps to stabilise the commodity market and hasten construction of new infrastructure, it said on Friday, in the effort to promote steady industrial growth.

In a joint notice, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and other regulators announced 18 measures in a notice involving fiscal, financial, environmental and more policies to prop up the industrial sector in the world’s second-largest economy.

The NDRC said the authorities would ensure supply and stabilise prices of primary products and key raw materials, including iron ore and fertiliser.

They also pledged to reinforce futures and spot market supervision of commodities and strengthen price monitoring.

China sought with a raft of measures recently to cool rapid growth in iron ore, a key steelmaking ingredient, to maintain market order and protect downstream users.

The most-traded iron ore futures on Dalian Commodity Exchange posted the biggest weekly decline in nearly two years.

The state planner said it will encourage companies to invest in certain domestic iron ore and copper projects and boost use of scrap metal.

Distributed solar power projects in central and eastern regions will also be encouraged, the NDRC said, adding that it would develop large-scale wind power and solar power bases in Gobi desert regions.

The economic planner said it would guide the financial system to transfer profits to the real economy this year, pushing state-owned banks to lend more to manufacturers and back major projects to cut carbon emissions.

The country will also speed up construction of new infrastructure projects, and increase financial support for traditional trading firms, cross-border e-commerce companies and others, authorities said in the notice.

(By Min Zhang, Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia will provide preventive and early-detection checkups to the country's entire population from May 1, Mongolian Health Minister Sereejav Enkhbold said Wednesday.

The move aims to reduce the risk of fatal diseases among Mongolian citizens, and narrow the life expectancy gap between men and women, Enkhbold told a press conference.

In Mongolia, the average life expectancy is 70.8 years for women and 60.6 years for men, Enkhbold said, adding that the government aims to reduce the gap to five years by 2024.

Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancers, and traumatic injury are now the leading causes of death in Mongolia, according to the health minister.

A total of 60.8 billion Mongolian tugriks (about 21.3 million U.S. dollars) from the state budget will be used to support the preventive and early-detection checkups this year.

The government-financed checkups designed to cover a population of 3.4 million will also help improve Mongolia's health data, the ministry said.

Aspire Mining Ltd is focused on the development of metallurgical coal assets in Mongolia, principally the wholly owned Ovoot Coking Coal Project (OCCP). There have been some recent positive developments in Mongolia which will assist the company in the funding and operation of the OCCP.

Summary

Resolution of the Oyu Tolgoi dispute.

Confirmation of a number of rail developments, including the commencement of construction of the Sainshand to Khangi\Mandal border railway, which will significantly alleviate bottlenecks at the Erlian border.

The growing requirement to use containers for bulk coal shipments into China.

Resolution of Oyu Tolgoi investment agreement and underground development approval

On 25 January 2022, the Board of Oyu Tolgoi unanimously approved commencement of underground operations at the Oyu Tolgoi copper\gold project (OT), by far the largest mining project in Mongolia. OT is owned 34% by the Mongolian government and 66% by Rio Tinto controlled Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd (TRQ). This approval followed the Parliament of Mongolia’s Resolution 103 which resolved a number of disputes between the parties and approved a comprehensive package of outcomes to progress development of OT.

Being by far the largest foreign investment in Mongolia, the OT disputes between the Mongolian government and Rio\TRQ gained worldwide negative attention. The continued uncertainty about the future operations of OT has been referred to by many commentators as an ongoing sovereign risk issue and expressed caution about the security of international investment into the country.

The OT Project is described by TRQ CEO, Steve Thibeault, as a “once in a generation mine that when finished is expected to be one of the largest copper producing mines in the world and a generator of vast economic value and employment in Mongolia.”

While the circumstances of Aspire and its OCCP are vastly different, nevertheless Aspire sees this as a watershed moment in revitalising the attractiveness of Mongolia as a standout destination for foreign investment combined with its excellent geological prospectivity and its strategic location in Asia.

This was confirmed by Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, the Prime Minister of Mongolia, who noted that: “The commencement of Oyu Tolgoi underground mining operations demonstrates to the world that Mongolia can work together with investors in a sustainable manner and become a trusted partner. As part of our ‘New Recovery Policy,’ I am happy to express Mongolia’s readiness to work actively and mutually beneficially with global investors and partners.”

Major Mongolian rail developments

There are significant tangible developments in rail that will significantly enhance the capacity of Mongolia to export to China, including:

The commissioning of the 416 km long Zuunbayan – Tavan Tolgoi Railway is expected in March 2022.

The progress on the 281 km railway from Zuunbayan to Khangi\Mandal. This project is expected to be completed in 2023 and will remove a significant bottleneck that currently exists in the railway from Sainshand to Zamyn -Uud\Erlian.

Chinese rail authorities noting that they intend to extend the Erlian border checkpoint after the 2022 Lunar New Year celebrations, boosting Mongolian export capacity through Zamyn-Uud.

The expectation that the Tavan Tolgoi – Gashuua Sukhait railway will be completed in July 2022, with the construction of the much shorter Gashuua Sukhait to Grants Mod railway that will deliver Mongolian coal directly into China, railway to start May 2022.

The Mongolia\China border at Khangi\Mandal is already receiving Mongolian iron ore exports by truck. The Mongolian government has prioritised both the 281 km rail extension to Khangi and the Khangi\Mandal border for a significant upgrade to its terminal activities as well as introducing container handling capabilities.

Aspire’s OCCP is planning to use both the expanded Zamyn-Uud\Erlian and Khangi\Mandal borders to export metallurgical coal, as well as markets accessible through the Russian rail system to the north.

Introducing containers to move metallurgical coal into China

Chinese border officials have recently been encouraging Mongolian iron ore and coal exporters to use containers through the Zamyn -Uud\Erlian border, which the company expects will also be extended to the Khangi\Mandal border once the railway connection has been completed.

While containers are more expensive on a per tonne basis than bulk carriers, there are specific benefits at the Mongolian\China border due to the change in rail gauge requiring transhipment. There are also environmental and commercial benefits in reducing coal dust and coal losses during transport, as well as providing additional product quality control over the entire logistics chain through to the end customer.

This mode of transport will be of particular benefit to Mongolian washed metallurgical coal exporters such as Aspire and its OCCP.