The Chinese city of Ejin Banner, which borders Mongolia, announced harsh punishment on six officials including local health commission's heads on Saturday for their slack response and ineffective management since the COVID-19 broke out on October 17.

The city has sacked the director and the deputy director of the local health commission. Another health commission official, three police officers, together with local people's hospital and civil affairs bureau will be held accountable.

Ejin Banner in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is the first city to impose punishment on officials since the emergence of the latest COVID-19 flare-up in multiple places, including the capital city Beijing, Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi and Jiayuguan in Northwest China's Gansu.

An expert told the Global Times last week that a possibility could not be ruled out that loopholes in ports in Inner Mongolia may have had triggered the domestic outbreak.

According to the regional health commission, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has reported 49 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases as of 11 am Sunday, with 31 cases detected in Ejin Banner.

The latest COVID-19 resurgence, which has been spreading into 11 provinces within a week, was triggered by a new imported source, which was then diagnosed as the Delta variant, according to officials from China's top health authority on Sunday.

Thailand U23 team head coach Worrawoot Srimaka on Sunday warned his players not to take their Group J opener of the AFC U23 Championship qualifiers against hosts Mongolia lightly.

The match will kick off at 10am (Thai time) and will be broadcast live on Channel One 31 and AIS Play.

Worrawoot told a pre-match news conference yesterday that he was wary of the Mongolian team's counter-attacking skills.

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"I am sure it will be an exciting match during which we would need to be on our toes all the time, especially in the midfield and defence," said the Thai coach.

"Mongolia have improved a lot, but we have the potential to do well. We have the strikers who can deliver three points to us.

"The first match of any event is always important and the key for us will be to avoid conceding an early goal."

Meanwhile, Thailand team manager Nualphan Lamsam has promised a one million baht incentive for the Thai U23 team if they could win today's game against Mongolia.

"The players look really excited but it will be a difficult game for us because the hosts would also want to start off with a victory," Nualphan said. "I have high hopes for a win."

The Thais also submitted their final line-up of 23 players to the organisers yesterday. The team are led by England-based players Thanawat Suengchittawon and Benjamin Davis.

Port bag three points

Second-half goals from Bordin Phala and Javier Patino gave Port a crucial 2-0 home victory over PT Prachuap in Thai League 1 last night.

Both sides had opportunities to break the deadlock in the first half but it was Port who dominated for the most part.

The home team's efforts finally led to the first goal for Port in the 78th minute when Nelson Bonilla set up Bordin for an unstoppable header. Pakorn Prempak created the second six minutes later when his lob was guided into the net by Patino.

Also last night, former champions Buriram United rallied to edge hosts Ratchaburi 2-1 to continue their stay at the top of the table.

In Saturday night's late game, Chiang Rai United struggled to claim a 1-0 victory over promoted Khon Kaen United.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mongolia and the Russian Federation, a delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation A.L. Overchuk is in Mongolia on a working visit between October 21 and 22.

October 22, Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia S. Amarsaikhan received his Russian counterpart A.L. Overchuk at State House.

At the outset of the meeting, Deputy PM S.Amarsaikhan emphasized that the peoples of Mongolia and Russia are united by good neighbors’ mutual trust and respect and strong friendship. The two sides expressed their commitment to pay more attention to expanding and intensifying bilateral trade and economic cooperation in the next 100 years.

Within the framework of intensifying bilateral trade and economic cooperation, the parties discussed the implementation of comprehensive measures such as modernization of the central railway corridor, expansion of Thermal Power Plant-III, Bogdkhan Railway Bypass Line project, gas pipeline project, as well as the modern equipment supply to border ports and improvement of infrastructure.

The parties also concurred to continue their efforts to organize the 23rd regular meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission, which is a main mechanism of Mongolia-Russia trade and economic cooperation, within this year.

Mr. Amarsaikhan said that the Government of Mongolia has set a goal to remove the country's over-dependence on the mining sector, develop non-mining exports, and establish an export-oriented economic structure, in addition to ongoing successful implementation of the Mongolia-Russia-China Economic Corridor Program. He thanked Russia for its continued support.

As inter-regional cooperation, especially the Mongolia-Eurasian Economic Union free trade agreement, is significant to achieve the goal to have an export-oriented economic structure, the parties decided to review the joint study on the possibility of concluding the agreement in the near future.

The wild moves in the copper market this week have sent traders into the history books. As inventories on the London Metal Exchange dropped to the lowest in decades, the price of contracts for immediate delivery surged to a record premium of more than $1,000 a ton to contracts for delivery in three months — the hallmark of a supply squeeze. The exchange has responded by launching an inquiry and imposing emergency rules.

While there’s been no suggestion of wrongdoing in this month’s squeeze, the LME has a rich history of wild price moves when markets are over- or undersupplied. In fact, it’s a heritage as old as the exchange itself.

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The Secretan syndicate

One of the first corners on the LME began in 1887, only a decade after the exchange was founded. It was led by Pierre Secretan, the head of France’s largest brass manufacturer, the Societe Industrielle et Commerciale des Metaux, who formed a syndicate with the intent of cornering the copper market. He bought up stocks of metal and struck contracts with all the world’s major copper mines, ending up controlling 80% of the world’s supply. Prices more than doubled. But high prices caused production to increase, and Secretan could no longer finance the huge volumes of copper he needed to buy to keep the price at its inflated levels. Copper prices collapsed, triggering disastrous losses for Secretan and his bankers.

The tin crisis

In 1985, the LME faced a crisis of a different sort: an oversupply of metal. Under an agreement involving 22 countries, the International Tin Council bought and sold tin on the LME with a view to maintaining stable prices. But on the morning of Oct. 24, 1985, the ITC collapsed: it could no longer keep propping up prices, and it defaulted under the weight of its obligations. The LME suspended tin trading amid warnings of “Armageddon” on the market. It only resumed four years later, in 1989.

Marc Rich

Beginning in 1991, Marc Rich + Co attempted to corner the zinc market. Together with two large zinc producers, the trading house bought up more than 90% of LME stocks of zinc and succeeded in pushing the price to a two-year high. But then the LME intervened, putting a limit on the backwardation and allowing anyone with a short position to defer delivery. It wasn’t long before prices started falling. Marc Rich + Co ended up losing $172 million, in a crisis that precipitated Rich’s exit from the company that he had founded (and which subsequently became Glencore Plc).

Mr. 5 Percent

For much of the 1990s, Yasuo Hamanaka, a trader at Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., was known as “Mr. 5 Percent” for his supposed share of the world’s copper market. He built up huge positions on the LME, driving prices higher. But his apparent mastery of the market began to unravel as prices fell in 1996. When the full extent of his trades became clear, it was revealed that he was hiding losses of more than $2 billion in what Sumitomo said were unauthorized trades. Hamanaka was sentenced to eight years in prison. The LME responded with a drastic rule change in an attempt to avert future market corners: it introduced “lending guidance”, forcing any trader with a large position to lend it to other market participants.

No more nickel

The LME intervened in the nickel market in August 2006 after stocks fell to the lowest in decades and prices hit record highs. This time there was no one trader responsible for the move, which was instead the result of a combination of strong demand from China and a strike at a major mine in Canada. The LME responded by imposing a cap on the backwardation in nickel prices. “These are exceptional circumstances,” then LME Chief Executive Simon Heale told Bloomberg at the time. “It’s an incredibly tight market.”

(By Jack Farchy)

The Ministry of Health reported that 2,153 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the past 24 hours. Specifically, 1,147 cases were confirmed in Ulaanbaatar city, with 1,006 cases in rural regions.

As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Mongolia stands at 342,992. 6,586 patients have made recoveries in the past 24 hours.

Furthermore, 17 new COVID-19 related deaths have been reported, raising the country’s death toll to 1,518. Currently, 18,717 people are receiving hospital treatment for COVID-19 whilst 52,060 people with mild symptoms of COVID-19 are being isolated at home.

Governor of the Capital City and Mayor of Ulaanbaatar D.Sumiyabazar today held a meeting with Managing Director for Central Asia of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Ms. Zsuzsanna Hargitai.

During the meeting, the sides noted that they attach great importance to their cooperation and exchanged views on possible future joint projects and programs. Emphasizing that Ulaanbaatar is one of the few cities that joined the bank’s ‘Green Cities’ program, Ms. Zsuzsanna Hargitai expressed readiness to work with the capital city on environmentally friendly and green growth projects. In turn, the Mayor pledged to support joint projects.

The meeting also touched upon collaboration of the two sides in a number of projects and programs to address some pressing issues of the city.

Present at the meeting were Head of EBRD Representative in Mongolia Hannes Takacs and Head of Project and Program Monitoring and Coordination Division of the Governor’s Office M.Ayasgalan.

The central bank considers that the economy is expected to have a 5.9 percent growth next year, which will be mainly due to the post-pandemic recovery of non-mining sector. It is also stated in a draft Basic Guidelines for 2022 State Monetary Policy that direct foreign investment and export earnings will support internal circulation, highlighted Governor of the Bank of Mongolia B.Lkhagvasuren at a meeting with the press on October 18.

The Government has obliged the central bank to implement fiscal and monetary policies aimed at supporting the economic recovery and increasing access to growth to overcome the difficulties posed by the pandemic. In this regard, the Bank of Mongolia states that it will pursue a policy to support public-private partnerships and keep implementing a medium-term monetary policy to stabilize the consumer price inflation at 6 percent in an interval. Stabilizing inflation at a low level will not only protect people’s real incomes and assets from devaluation, create conditions for the stability of the banking and financial system, but also support long-term investment and sustainable economic growth.

The demand-driven growth in prices is expected to increase gradually as the quarantine regime is being eased, policies to mitigate the impact of pandemic are being continually implemented and the economy is recovering.

Director General of the Monetary Policy Department of the Bank of Mongolia B.Bayardavaa said that the credit growth will be stabilized at 15-20 percent to ensure medium-term stability. He told that the average rate of inflation rising due to short-term, temporary or one-time supply factors caused by external and internal markets is expected to be 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter of next year.

As a result of the economic recovery at the country and abroad, Mongolia's total balance of payments is expected to have a surplus of more than USD200 million in 2022. Although the domestic economic recovery is increasing imports, the global economic recovery is expected to influence favorably on Mongolia’s export prices.

The central bank states that within the ‘10 trillion economic recovery’ plan, it will continue overseeing the implementation of loan issuance and other projects that support the creation of jobs, agricultural sector, repo financing and other project activities, as well as work closely with the government.

Coal export to China is constantly growing. In the last three weeks, a total of 6,919 trucks and 2,017 wagons of coal crossed the border, which means it has risen by about 60 percent compared to the three weeks in August to September.

The Government and Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry have taken rapid actions to establish container terminals at border crossings and state border areas to increase coal export. As a result, so far a container terminal in Gashuunsukhait has been built under the public-private partnership and put into operation within two months.

Transporting containerized coal through the Gashuunsukhait port has various advantages of increasing coal exports by improving border crossings, preventing the loss of coal quality, as well as reducing its negative impacts on the environment. It is estimated that short-haul coal shipments between the Mongolian and Chinese borders will increase coal export by 8-10 million tons per annum.

Surging coal prices and power shortages in China slowed the growth of the world’s second-largest economy in the third quarter and threaten to spill over to the global supply chains in the fourth quarter.

Last week, coal futures in China closed at a record high after sixty coal mines in the country’s top coal-producing region were forced to shut amid heavy rain, flooding, and landslides, worsening the energy supply crisis.

Later in the week, colder than normal weather in parts of China sent coal prices surging to new highs, while electricity demand soared. The rising power demand with cooler weather and industrial recovery after the pandemic has led to shortages of coal in the country, which has been rationing power supply in at least 17 of the mainland regions since last month.

Year to date, the price of the most actively traded Chinese coal futures has soared by over 200%, according to Reuters estimates.

As temperatures further plunged over the weekend, coal futures hit a new record today.

The power cuts and the subdued property investment after the Evergrande debacle resulted in weaker-than-expected economic growth in China in the third quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 4.9% in Q3 compared to the same quarter last year, below the 5.2-percent growth expected by analysts in a Reuters poll.

The slowdown in Chinese economic growth and the power cuts in factories risk roiling further global supply chains, which have already been strained by a mass chip shortage and delays in shipments of various input materials.

For example, Dutch conglomerate Phillips warned on Monday that its Q3 sales were “impacted unfavorably by intensified global supply chain issues, such as the shortage of electronic components.”

“Supply chain volatility has intensified globally, which already led to longer lead times to convert our strong order book to revenue in the third quarter, and we expect this headwind to continue in the fourth quarter,” CEO Frans van Houten said.