Bullish sentiment has overtaken the copper market, with the bellwether metal hitting a fresh milestone on Thursday in New York with prices peaking at $4.60 a pound or $10,140 a tonne.

Amid all the euphoria, spare a thought for Australian copper miners though. The country’s copper producers have not been able to fully take advantage of a rally they helped create.

Relations between Canberra and Beijing hit a new low on Thursday, but copper became a casualty of the spat many months ago.

Unlike the iron ore market where the countries’ steel mills and iron ore miners are joined at the hip and Beijing holds less sway in the trade relationship, Australia counted as only China’s number five supplier of copper prior.

As China row deepens, 1 million tonnes of Australian copper concentrate need new buyers

With imports at zero since the end of November under a ban that was never made official, as a swing supplier Australian producers can influence dynamics of the seaborne market and create headaches for Chinese smelters already dealing with historically low refining charges.

Treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) paid by miners to smelters to process concentrate into refined metal rise when supply is ample and fall when smelters are forced to compete for scarce material. TC/RCs fell to a historically low level of just over $20 a tonne last month compared to more than $70 a tonne in June last year and spikes as high as $130 in the previous decade.

Wood Mackenzie research director Gillian Moncur said Thursday that Chinese smelters remain closed to concentrates from Australia, compared to a peak of 108,000 tonnes in June last year.

“We estimate that the annual volume impacted is around 1.0 Mtpa of copper concentrate, which is looking for homes in other Asia Pacific smelters.

“This has resulted in China looking for concentrates from elsewhere, at a time when the market was very tight due to weather related issues, deferring shipments and other factors.”

The world’s top copper producer Chile is giving bulls another reason to cheer while prices soared to an all-time high on Friday as optimism about a global rebound from the pandemic spurs a surge across commodities markets.

Copper for delivery in July ended the day up 3.2%, with futures trading at $4.7490 per pound ($10,470 a tonne) on the Comex market in New York.

Chile’s lower house on Thursday approved a measure that would introduce progressive taxes on copper sales, potentially creating a total burden of more than 80% — or almost double that of other major copper-producing nations.

The measure, which would go into effect in 2024, still needs to be approved by the senate and could be blocked by the government in court. But if it succeeds, it could stall investments in a country where mature low-grade deposits need plenty of expenditure just to maintain output levels of about 5.7 million tonnes a year.

“This would at the very least delay any new capacity, extending the lengthy time-line to bring on a new mine,” said Grant Sporre, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“Chile’s output could start to fade to 5 million tonnes.”

Chile’s copper export revenue jumped 69% in April. The world’s top copper producer said it had exported $4.541 billion worth of copper in April alone.

“THE COPPER MARKET AS IT CURRENTLY STANDS IS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS DEMAND ENVIRONMENT”

Goldman Sachs Group

Prices are up more than 30% this year and have more than doubled from lows in March of last year.

Click here for an interactive chart of copper prices

“Given high payments to the state, some assets would be un-investable and thus it limits the pool of mines that can make adequate returns, limiting supply,” said BTG Pactual analyst Cesar Perez-Novoa.

“No mining company is going to take risks without being rewarded.”

“It’s hard to foresee copper prices turning around amid the current bullish atmosphere,” Ji Xianfei, an analyst with Guotai Junan Futures told Bloomberg.

“Macro easing, ample liquidity and a weaker dollar continue to drive the rally, while the broader commodities surge is being fueled by bets on inflation.”

Trading house Trafigura Group, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America expect copper to extend gains.

Steel prices across Asia and North America are also booming, iron ore is at a record above $200 per tonne as miners struggle to keep up with the frenzied pace of consumption, and tin topped $30 000 for the first time in a decade.

“The copper market as it currently stands is not prepared for this demand environment,” said Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

There are a few major mines in development and none on the scale required to meet forecasts for future demand.

“We don’t have many shovel-ready projects,” said Ivan Glasenberg, billionaire CEO of Glencore Plc.

“You will need the so-called $15,000 copper price to encourage a lot of this more difficult investment.”

Risks

There’s signs emerging in China, the top consumer, that high copper prices are starting to bite and authorities have pledged to stabilize raw material prices.

China’s imports of copper ore and concentrate fell in April from the previous month, according to customs data released Friday.

Some manufacturers and end-users have been slowing production or pushing back delivery times after costs surged, Shanghai Metals Market said last week.

(With files from Reuters and Bloomberg)

North Korean authorities plan to send workers to Mongolia this month, Daily NK has learned. This comes after the country’s leadership sent new batches of workers to Russia in March.

These moves suggest that North Korea is expanding its efforts to raise funds following a shortage of foreign currency due to difficulties caused by COVID-19 and continuing international sanctions on the country.

On May 2, a Daily NK source reported that around 200 workers are set to head to Mongolia in early May. The group of workers is made up of 60% males and 40 females: the men will work on agricultural and livestock farms while the women will work in textile factories.

Recruitment for these workers started late last month and the authorities have completed the third-round of screening of the candidates. The fourth-round of screening, which involves preparing necessary documentation for leaving the country, is now in progress.

It typically takes from four to six months for North Korean authorities to fully screen all workers heading to overseas locations such as China or Russia. During the first-round of screening, recruiters examine recommendations from municipal and county-level party organizations along with the results of basic health exams conducted at local hospitals.

Those candidates who pass the first-round of screening in a given province then take part in the second-round of screening, which is administered by the provincial party organization. During this stage, each candidate is interviewed one-on-one and recruiters examine the results of more extensive health exams conducted at provincial-level hospitals. These health exams focus on uncovering evidence of various transmittable diseases such as pneumonia, hepatitis, and tuberculosis.

That being said, candidates who suffer from “less than serious” cases of any of these transmittable diseases can still pass muster if they bribe hospital officials or even recruiters.

The third-round of screening is administered by central government agencies involved in sending workers abroad, such as the Central Committee, Cabinet or military. The workers sent to Russia in March, for example, were recruited by the External Construction Guidance Bureau, which means that the agency conducted interviews in Pyongyang and ultimately selected the final candidates. The screening of candidates for this latest Mongolia dispatch was conducted by the Ministry of Fisheries and the Capital Construction Guidance Bureau.

During the third-round of screening, candidates also undergo a third health exam at Pyongyang’s No. 2 People’s Hospital. During this health exam, candidates are again tested for transmittable diseases, including AIDS. According to the source, candidates can pass all these tests with bribes, but “no matter how much bribe money you throw at it, no one can bribe their way out” of a positive AIDS test.

A large number of laborers are working in this building, under construction in Ussuriysk, Russia. Image = Daily NK source

This undated photo shows a building in Ussuriysk, Russia, where a large number of North Korean workers were employed in construction work. / Image: Daily NK

The fourth-round of screening, meanwhile, is administered by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In reality, final candidates are already chosen by the third-round of screening, which means that the ministry just conducts basic interviews with four candidates at a time before providing them with passports, visas, and other documentation.

This four-phase recruitment system is part of the government’s efforts to fully screen anyone they send out of the country. Many North Koreans, however, say that this four-stage system is aimed at providing recruitment agencies and cadres with opportunities to glean bribes off of candidates. Forcing candidates to undergo three overlapping health exams, for example, provides ample opportunity for cadres to milk bribes out of candidates who fail certain health tests.

Recently, if a candidate is found to have a transmittable disease, they may have to pay up to a USD 1,000 bribe. This amount contrasts sharply with the USD 500 sum they had to pay in 2019.

In the past, moreover, North Korean workers sent to Russia took trains or buses, but on account of an order from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier this year, they now have to take a Russia-bound flight from Beijing.

Workers who were sent to Vladivostok in March, for example, took a very roundabout way to get to their destination. They departed for Dandong from Pyongyang before heading to Beijing to catch Moscow-bound flights. From Moscow, they then had to make their way to Vladivostok.

North Korean authorities have tried to explain away the use of flights for these workers as “consideration shown by Chairman Kim” for their safety; however, the workers appear to be flying out from China because international train services have not yet restarted. Because the workers have to pay for their own flights, costs related to travel have reportedly risen by a factor of 10.

On average, overseas workers are USD 3,000 in debt due to bribes made during the recruitment process or because of costly travel fees. While they all plan to repay this debt with the money earned abroad, this is not an easy proposition given that they face excessive demands to contribute to “party funds” once they are dispatched to foreign countries.

“While the reality turns out differently, people want to leave the country despite the risk of debt because of their hope that they can earn lots of money when they go abroad,” the source said. “Without saving anything up, some are able to just barely pay back their debts when they return.”

Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

A metallurgy-chemical plant complex will be established in Bayan-Undur soum, Orkhon aimag. The operation permit for the industrial and technology park was given to Erdenet Mining Corporation at the cabinet meeting that took place on May 5.

Erdenet Mining Corporation will be establishing a factory for smelting and processing copper concentrate, processing oxidized ore, and manufacturing sulfuric acid and emulsion explosion as well as repairs and mechanical processes with financing of MNT 1.8 trillion.

By putting the industrial park into operation, it will become possible for:

- ‘Erdenetiin Ovoo’ strategic deposit to be fully utilized and put into economic circulation,

- the competitive factory to be developed as a cluster based on advanced technology,

- final products to be manufactured and supplied to the market,

- the conditions to be created for other corresponding factories to be established at the same location,

- Erdenet city to develop independently,

- state and local budget income to increase,

- about 1,000 job opportunities to be created locally as starters.

940 new cases of COVID-19 have been recorded nationwide in the past 24 hours.

932 of the new cases are community-acquired cases, of which 828 were detected in Ulaanbaatar city and 104 in rural areas. The remaining 8 are hospital-acquired cases.

42,464 COVID-19 cases have so far been recorded in the country. In the past 24 hours, 1,308 people have been discharged from hospital, bringing the total number of recoveries to 27,242. 4,878 people are currently receiving treatment for COVID-19.

The Ministry of Health also reported that 12 people died from COVID-19 on May 5, taking the COVID-19 death toll to 142.

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressing their concern about recent political developments in Mongolia.

“Recent controversial actions taken by the parliament, the judiciary, and the president – including the hasty passage of an amendment to the Presidential Election Law that barred the incumbent from seeking reelection, the removal of a Constitutional Court judge seen as likely to challenge the constitutionality of the parliament’s action, and the president’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to disband the ruling party – have sparked a political crisis that could undermine the credibility of the presidential election on June 9,” the senators wrote. “We further encourage you to work with USAID and consider funding a short-term international election observation team to document any attempts to deny the Mongolian people the ability to have their voices heard through the ballot box.”

“Democracy promotion must remain a core element of our foreign policy, particularly as authoritarian forces such as the Chinese Communist Party are working tirelessly to erode these values around the world,” the senators concluded.

Rubio is a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Leahy is Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate.

The full text of the letter is below.

Dear Secretary Blinken:

We write today to express our concern about Mongolia and what recent political developments may portend for the future of democracy in the country. As you know, Mongolia has been a remarkable democratic success story, particularly considering how it is precariously situated between two authoritarian neighbors, the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, the former of which has expressed expansionist designs toward Mongolia in the past and may still harbor them.

The United States has an abiding interest in ensuring that democracy in Mongolia continues to flourish. Recent controversial actions taken by the parliament, the judiciary, and the president – including the hasty passage of an amendment to the Presidential Election Law that barred the incumbent from seeking reelection, the removal of a Constitutional Court judge seen as likely to challenge the constitutionality of the parliament’s action, and the president’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to disband the ruling party – have sparked a political crisis that could undermine the credibility of the presidential election on June 9.

In light of these developments, we respectfully urge the State Department to engage in dialogue with all political parties involved with the aim of deescalating the growing tensions between them, ensuring that no one is arbitrarily denied the standing to run for election and each political party has the right to nominate the candidate of their choice to appear on the presidential ballot, and encouraging the maintenance of an impartial judiciary. We further encourage you to work with USAID and consider funding a short-term international election observation team to document any attempts to deny the Mongolian people the ability to have their voices heard through the ballot box. Last minute changes to election laws risk undermining public confidence in the government and could give rise to instability.

In addition, we are concerned that this chain of events could make Mongolia increasingly vulnerable to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to undermine Mongolia’s democracy, rule of law, and its judicial system through corruption of and collusion with certain Mongolian leaders. In November 2016, following a visit by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the PRC punished Mongolia with economic sanctions. Tsend Munkh-Orgil, a politician serving as foreign minister, publicly supported Beijing’s demand that Ulaanbaatar prohibit the Dalai Lama from ever visiting the country again. This was a shocking statement, as Tibetan Buddhism is Mongolia’s dominant religious tradition, and many Mongolians are devout followers of the Dalai Lama. In December 2017, Dashzeveg Amarbayasgalan, General Secretary of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), told a reporter in Beijing: “We are willing to go the next step to strengthen exchange and cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party and China…in order to work diligently toward building the community of common destiny for all mankind.” The MPP General Secretary reportedly made similar comments on the MPP’s centennial anniversary in March 2021, and several formal exchanges between the CCP and MPP have taken place in recent years involving the General Secretary and other senior MPP officials.

Democracy promotion must remain a core element of our foreign policy, particularly as authoritarian forces such as the CCP are working tirelessly to erode these values around the world. We look forward to working with you to find ways to strengthen U.S.-Mongolia relations and support democracy in Mongolia.

Sincerely,

Authorities will ease restrictions nationwide from 06:00 May 8 amid ongoing COVID-19 activity. Officials will permit most business sectors to resume operations; however, higher-risk businesses, such as retail outlets, cultural and entertainment venues, fitness facilities, bars, and nightclubs, will remain closed until at least May 22. Restaurants cannot offer dine-in services, though some outdoor seating is possible. The government will begin to reopen such businesses in phases for fully vaccinated residents; these individuals can return to fitness centers from May 15 and shopping centers from May 22 using a quick response (QR) code health certificate. Public gatherings remain limited to five people. The government also continues to require all people to wear facemasks in public nationwide.

Local officials will continue to restrict transport to and from provincial capitals. The government also restricts travel from Ulaanbaatar to other areas of Mongolia. Exceptions are in place for essential cargo shipments, healthcare workers, business trips, and charity work. Individuals traveling from other parts of Mongolia must complete a health declaration form before entering Ulaanbaatar. Officials are resuming traffic management using quick-response (QR) codes for private vehicles and taxis; authorization is only possible for people required to work onsite and other exceptions. Residents of the capital must present a negative result from a COVID-19 test taken within the previous 72 hours to leave the city; officials will also permit interprovincial travel for fully vaccinated residents. Public transport will return to regularly scheduled services 07:00-23:00 daily.

Authorities will likely continue highly localized lockdowns in residential buildings and businesses that have reported COVID-19 exposure in the capital. Residents, employees, and patrons of these locations must undergo COVID-19 testing and quarantine until receiving negative test results. Authorities will require close contacts of COVID-19 cases and their household members to quarantine for seven days, followed by a seven-day self-quarantine. Officials will require suspected cases stemming from an outbreak site to quarantine for seven days.

The government continues to permit international cargo transport via the Tsagaannuur and Borshoo border checkpoints. Authorities will reopen the Ereentsav border checkpoint for freight starting May 10.

Travel RestrictionsInternational travel restrictions will remain in effect until at least May 31. International commercial flights and passenger rail transport remain banned; only repatriation flights are operational for Mongolian nationals, permanent residents, and some long-term visa holders. Some charter flights for foreign nationals seeking to leave Mongolia are also authorized. International arrivals are required to quarantine in government-run facilities at their own expense for 10 days, followed by four days of self-quarantine.

Advice

Consider postponing travel to Mongolia if affected by travel restrictions. Register with your diplomatic mission if attempting to depart Mongolia. Follow all official instructions. Abide by national health and safety measures. Liaise with trusted contacts for further updates and guidance. Maintain contact with your diplomatic representation. Confirm all domestic transport arrangements. Ensure contingency plans account for further disruptive measures or extensions of current restrictions. Plan for potential shipping disruptions. Reconsider and reconfirm nonemergency health appointments.

Micro and small enterprises in Mongolia , including the ones in remote rural areas, will have more opportunities to withstand the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic and grow their business thanks to the latest agreement between the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the local lender Transcapital NBFI.

Funds of up to MNT 10 billion (€2.9 million equivalent) will be used by Transcapital NBFI, the country’s leading micro lender and an EBRD partner since 2013, to provide loans to micro and small enterprises across this vast and sparsely populated east-Asian nation.

This will be the first EBRD loan agreement benefitting immediately from a long-term dollar-tugrug swap facility signed between the EBRD and the Bank of Mongolia in January 2021, the purpose of which is to increase the availability of MNT financing to local businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Only a small proportion of non-banking financial institutions in Mongolia provide funds to micro and small enterprises in rural areas. The EBRD loan will stimulate the development of non-banking lending in remote parts of the country and channel funds to rural businesses.

In Mongolia, the EBRD works to help build a diverse economy by developing the private sector and supporting infrastructure improvements. The Bank has invested more than €1.86 billion in 114 projects in the country since it started operations there in 2006.

May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Mongolian government has decided to postpone the re-opening of its air border until early June due to the COVID-19 surge, Deputy Prime Minister Sainbuyan Amarsaikhan said Wednesday.

Initially, the government decided to reopen its air border from May 1 to resume international passenger flights, after closing it in February 2020 to prevent the spread of the virus.

"Considering that the spread of the COVID-19 virus has not decreased as much as expected, we have decided to postpone the re-opening of the air border until early June," Amarsaikhan told reporters.

As of Wednesday, Mongolia has registered a total of 41,524 COVID-19 cases, among which over 32,600 were detected since April 1 this year.

The Asian country reported its first imported COVID-19 case in March 2020 and confirmed its first locally transmitted cases in November. Enditem

Today, UNICEF in partnership with the Government of Mongolia and the Ministry of Health has started the construction work of the new vaccines central storage building at the NCCD funded by the World Bank. The new facility will strengthen the capacity of Mongolia's health sector to prepare and respond to disease outbreaks and pandemics.

The new central vaccines storage will be a two-story, 1,686-square-meter facility designed to store Covid-19 and routine vaccines. The current vaccine storage was built in 2008 with the technical and financial support from UNICEF.