Copper prices resumed their rally on Monday, reaching the highest level since 2012, on concerns over a market deficit driven by tight supply and strong demand for the industrial metal.

There has also been speculation that more factories in China, the world’s top consumer, have remained open during the Lunar New Year holiday, keeping copper demand elevated during what is normally considered a slow period of industrial activities.

Copper contracts advanced 1.0% to $3.8265 per pound (about $8,436 per tonne) by noon EST on the Comex. The base metal is on track for its 11th straight monthly gain and is up more than 8.8% since the beginning of the year.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Grant Sporre and Andrew Cosgrove, assuming their scenario of 5% demand growth is in the ballpark, production guidance from the top 25 copper producers indicates the market may be in a sizable deficit this year.

Aggregated mined supply guidance is more than 400,000 tonnes shy of BI estimates, the analysts said, suggesting a shortfall close to half-a-million tonnes.

Copper is “being driven by a cocktail of positive factors — including rising inflation expectations caused by US stimulus, a falling dollar and historically low stocks,” said Gavin Wendt, a senior resource analyst at MineLife Pty.

“The 2021 copper production outlook is likely to be negatively impacted as a result of covid in a number of major South American producing nations,” Wendt added.

(With files from Bloomberg)

The global focus on sustainability has accelerated - and there has been talk of tailwinds behind the clean energy sector now that Joe Biden has taken the reins in the US. Countries such as Australia are now facing pressure from Washington’s Climate Envoy John Kerry and from the EU to do more as international media herald the ‘end of coal’.

Closer to Mongolia, a recent report from the Asian Development Bank found that northeast Asian countries relied on fossil fuels for 70 percent of electricity generation in 2018. Of those countries, the three largest – China, Japan and South Korea – have all pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or 2060.

In 2020, according to the Bank, those three countries consumed 8815.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, which means roughly 6000-6200 TWh will need to be converted to renewable sources in the next 30-40 years. That’s about 40 percent more electricity than the US uses in a year – right next door to Mongolia’s huge renewable resources.

Surely now is the time for Mongolia’s renewable energy sector to boom?

In theory, yes. But in practice, a renewable boom won’t happen unless corporate boardrooms decide that projects are likely to be profitable.

As the situation stands, renewable energy projects are disadvantaged from the start by the Mongolian government’s huge subsidies for coal-fired electricity.

Although there are obstacles to profitability further down the road – namely whether exports to China, South Korea and Japan are diplomatically feasible – this is the first roadblock.

In an interview, E. Orchlon, the head of Clean Energy Asia, said that the subsidy scheme prevents renewable energy projects from matching the extraordinarily low price point of Mongolia’s coal-fired power plants.

“The depreciation costs [of those plants] have already been recouped,” Orchlon said. “In other words, electricity is generated at a rate that includes only human wages and repair costs. Second, huge subsidies are given to this sector. Thermal coal is even subsidized from mines to power plants. [So] the main reason for not being able to build large-scale new power plants is the lack of money in the system.”

That lack of money is preventing much-needed capital from reaching renewables.

In a boardroom, the net present value of a project needs to be positive for a proposal to survive the decision-making process. If cash inflows are guaranteed through watertight future energy contracts at decent price points and cash outflows for investors are reduced, then Mongolia’s renewable sector may take off.

Conversely, if Mongolia continues to subsidise coal-fired electricity to $0.04 per kilowatt hour (amongst the lowest prices in the world) for all users, then foreign investors won’t see a positive net present value in Mongolian renewables.

That means an increase in electricity rates for end users is necessary to improve the system, which obviously isn’t going to be popular.

So now a money problem has become a political problem – but there are reasons to press on.

One line of resistance to a rates hike is that the government needs to keep Mongolia’s electricity prices affordable for poorer households. UB is the coldest capital in the world with an average annual temperature of -1.3C, and the average monthly salary for a UB resident is around US $490. The government wrote off utility costs (electricity and heating) for households to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 until this July.

But research shows that utility subsidies don’t have much impact on the disposable income of lower income households compared to other social programs. That means the government could better help poorer households by redirecting the money spent on subsidies to other social safety nets whilst also improving the net present value outlook for renewable energy investors.

Second, a rate hike for the purpose of boosting the renewable energy sector may actually reduce wholesale prices in the long term.

A study in Australia (another coal-dependent grid) found that renewable energy projects reduced wholesale prices by a greater amount than the cost of subsidising those same projects.

Finally, a rate hike doesn’t actually need to impact households. According to Ministry of Energy figures from 2018, households only account for 18 percent of Mongolia’s total energy consumption, whilst industry and construction accounted for 47 percent. An increase in rates for industry with targeted discounts for households could be a more efficient way of achieving the same outcome without attracting the ire of voters.

In sum, it will be difficult for Mongolia to tap into its vast renewable resources and improve its electricity grid without spending political capital on increasing the price of electricity.

But if the framework and benefits of an increase (as outlined above) are well communicated to the public, then perhaps the end of coal really is a possibility. And Mongolia can capture the accelerating opportunities created by a net-zero carbon world

By: Ewen Levick

Fifty-one billion and zero - the two numbers Bill Gates says you need to know about climate.

Solving climate change would be "the most amazing thing humanity has ever done", says the billionaire founder of Microsoft.

By comparison, ending the pandemic is "very, very easy", he claims.

Mr Gates's new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is a guide to tackling global warming.

Don't underestimate the scale of the challenge, he told me when we spoke last week.

"We've never made a transition like we're talking about doing in the next 30 years. There is no precedent for this."

Fifty-one billion is how many tonnes of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere each year.

Net zero is where we need to get to.

This means cutting emissions to a level where any remaining greenhouse gas releases are balanced out by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere. One way to do this is by planting trees, which soak up CO2 through their leaves.

Renewable sources like wind and solar can help us decarbonise electricity but, as Mr Gates points out, that's less than 30% of total emissions.

We are also going to have to decarbonise the other 70% of the world economy - steel, cement, transport systems, fertiliser production and much, much more.

We simply don't have ways of doing that at the moment for many of these sectors.

'Governments must lead'

The answer, says Mr Gates, will be an innovation effort on a scale the world has never seen before.

This has to start with governments, he argues.

At the moment, the economic system doesn't price in the real cost of using fossil fuels.

Most users don't pay anything for the damage to the environment done by pollution from the petrol in their car or the coal or gas that created the electricity in their home.

"Right now, you don't see the pain you're causing as you emit carbon dioxide," is how Mr Gates puts it.

That's why he says governments have to intervene.

"We need to have price signals to tell the private sector that we want green products," he says.

That is going to require a huge investment by governments in research and development, Mr Gates argues, as well as support to allow the market for new products and technologies to grow, thereby helping drive down prices.

Yet Mr Gates was famous for arguing that regulation stifled innovation when he was building Microsoft into the multi-billion-dollar behemoth it is now.

So isn't it a bit rich for him now to demand government intervention?

He replies he has always supported "the basic role of government in terms of roads and justice and education and scientific research".

And, on the climate issue, he maintains it will be impossible to avoid a disaster, particularly for those who live near the equator, without governments around the world getting behind the effort.

The Republican Party in America needs to recognise the importance of tackling climate change, says Mr Gates.

This needs to be a "constant 30-year push", he maintains. "Business just can't change all that physical infrastructure unless the market signals are constant and very clear."

"India is going to build housing for their people, provide lighting at night, air conditioning to make conditions liveable," Mr Gates believes, so global demand will not reduce.

He argues political action is more important, demanding government do the right thing, and, using our voices as consumers, insisting the same of companies.

"If you buy an electric car, a hamburger made of a meat substitute, an electric heat pump for your home you are helping increase the production of these products and therefore helping drive prices down."

Mr Gates still enjoys the trappings of the billionaire lifestyle.

He uses private jets, but insists that they are powered by biofuels - aviation fuels made from plant products.

"I pay three times as much now for my aviation fuel, you know, over $7m [£5m] a year in all my offset spending."

And he has joined a £3bn bidding war to buy one of the world's largest private jet services companies, a business called Signature Aviation.

Is that appropriate when you've just written a book telling the world how to avoid a climate disaster?

"I don't think getting rid of flying would make sense," he replies. "That type of brute force technique won't get us there."

He says the answer has to be "a type of aviation fuel that doesn't cost much extra and is zero emission and that's got to be biofuels or electric fuels or perhaps using green hydrogen to power the plane".

Covid conspiracies

Mr Gates has become something of a bogeyman for coronavirus conspiracy theorists.

He has been accused of everything from concocting the virus in a secret laboratory as part of a project by global elites to depopulate the world, to using vaccinations to implant microchips in people to track and control them.

He laughs when asked about this.

"Why would I want to track people? You know, I'm just not that interested in where people are going."

The main focus for his huge charitable efforts to date has been tackling health issues in developing countries.

He tells me he is used to people getting bored when he talks about tuberculosis and malaria at cocktail parties, so this is a real change from what he calls "the normal obscurity of working on infectious disease".

But he says he was worried that speaking out on climate might attract similar controversy.

"I don't want to dilute my voice on issues like polio eradication or malaria," Mr Gates explains, but says he felt this was the right time to publish his plan for tackling climate change.

He says he wants his ideas to feed into the green stimulus packages being proposed around the world and to be discussed in the run-up to the crucial climate conference the UK is hosting in Glasgow in November this year.

We are at a crucial point in the climate debate, Mr Gates believes.

He describes the young generation as having a "moral conviction" that they have to be involved in bringing change on the issue.

"Now we have to take that energy and make sure it's directed at the policies that will make a difference," he argues.

But it isn't going to be easy, he warns.

This has to continue to be a huge priority for the world year in, year out.

The hope is "we get a bit lucky" and succeed in developing innovative new technologies that really do solve the hard areas, he says.

But he is optimistic that we can still avoid the worst effects of climate change.

"You know, I've seen many times, innovation surprises us in a positive way."

I've travelled all over the world for the BBC and seen evidence of environmental damage and climate change everywhere. It's the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. Tackling it means changing how we do virtually everything. We are right to be anxious and afraid at the prospect, but I reckon we should also see this as a thrilling story of exploration, and I'm delighted to have been given the chance of a ringside seat as chief environment correspondent.

India is projected to become the second largest producer of Covid-19 vaccines in the world, providing them not only for its own population, but for other developing nations, analysts say.

The South Asian nation was producing around 60 percent of the world’s vaccines even before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the production capacities of Indian pharma manufacturers allow vaccines to be made at relatively low cost.

“India has been a manufacturing hub for vaccines… even before the pandemic, and should therefore be a strategic partner in the global inoculation against Covid-19,” according to a report published by JPMorgan analysts.

India will become the world’s second biggest vaccine producer after the US, according to London-based multinational consultancy Deloitte. PS Easwaran, a partner at Deloitte India, expects the country to produce over 3.5 billion Covid-19 vaccines, with the US forecasted to produce four billion.

Seeking to meet the growing demand across the globe, Indian companies are reportedly ramping up production facilities.

“We are expanding our annualized capacities to deliver 700 million doses of our intramuscular Covaxin,” Indian firm Bharat Biotech, which developed a Covid-19 vaccine in cooperation with the state-owned Indian Council of Medical Research, told CNBC.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) is currently producing Covishield, which was co-developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. The institute makes 50 million doses of the vaccine every month, with plans to boost production to 100 million doses a month by next month, Reuters reported.

Vaccines developed by the Russian Direct Investment Fund and US firm Johnson & Johnson are also produced by Indian pharm manufacturers.

“Even without successful vaccine development from their own pipelines, available capacity provides opportunity to partner as contract manufacturers with approved vaccine developers to meet supply needs particularly for India and other [emerging markets],” JPMorgan report said.

When it comes to meeting demand in developing countries, vaccines produced in India are cheaper and easier to transport in comparison with those produced in Europe and the US, according to K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India.

Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The average life expectancy in Mongolia has risen to 70.19 years, according to a report released by the country's National Statistics Office on Monday.

"The average life expectancy of our population was first calculated in 1992. In 26 years until 2018 since then, the average life expectancy in the country increased by 7.4 years to 70.19 years," the survey conducted in 2020 showed.

In addition, the average life expectancy of men in Mongolia was 4.19 years shorter than that of women in 1992, but in 2018 the gap increased to 9.67 years, according to the report.

High consumption of tobacco and alcohol by men, resulting in diseases such as lung and liver cancer and cardiovascular problems, is said to be the main reason Mongolian men have a shorter lifespan than women on average.

Mongolia is an East Asian country with a population of 3.3 million. Enditem

It all began exactly thirty years ago. On February 14, 1991, the eve of Tsagaan Sar, Mongolia joined the World Bank Group[1]. This was the period when the country had just gotten on the path of democracy, free market, and openness to the outside world. Mongolia rightly took pride in this transition but, at the same time, it presented enormous challenges, including a sharp economic contraction. Following the cut of external aid, the hardship was felt by Mongolians every day. Long lines were visible on every street corner for rationed food.

The World Bank’s support was quick to arrive. By the end of 1991, the first project of $30 million was already signed to help rehabilitate production in key sectors such as agriculture, energy and transport. The World Bank also carried out a comprehensive macroeconomic analysis, zooming in on the immediate challenges of runaway inflation and falling output.

Since these early days three decades ago, the World Bank Group (WBG) has accompanied Mongolia’s strong recovery and development, culminating in the country’s graduation from the International Development Association (IDA) – the WBG’s lending window for low income countries – last year. Mongolia’s economy has expanded significantly over this period, with GDP per capita rising more than fourfold from $1,072 in 1991 to $4,339 in 2019. But growth has been volatile. Like many other resource-rich countries in the world, Mongolia experienced persistent boom-and-bust cycles. Economic diversification remains critical to generate productive jobs, especially for the young. People’s living standards have improved, but growth did not not generate shared prosperity for all. Mongolian citizens expect their government to deliver quality education and health services, and provide for a clean and safe living environment. Their aspirations have not yet been fully realized.

Through good and difficult times, the WBG has remained a steadfast partner of Mongolia. Our budget support operations helped Mongolia restore macroeconomic stability and lay the foundations for inclusive growth. Our investments contributed to economic development in both mining and non-mining sectors, improving people’s livelihoods, and addressing environment and climate challenges. A total of $1.28 billion World Bank financing has been committed to Mongolia for these years. The WBG’s private sector arms—the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)—have also been active in supporting private investments.

The investments have helped improve people’s livelihoods across the country. In the energy sector, we supported electricity access to over 100,000 rural and herder families providing them with portable solar panels in the 2000s. In the early 2000s, the World Bank telecommunications project helped all 360 soums in Mongolia gain access to modern phone and internet services. To help herders mitigate natural disaster risks, we supported the world’s first index-based livestock insurance system in Mongolia. To improve governance, we helped revamp the statistical system in Mongolia to match international standards to inform decision making, and empowered citizens to make their voice heard on public expenditure allocations at local levels. IFC financed Mongolia’s first utility-scale windfarm for the country and supported reforms to increase access to finance for SMEs through enabling movable collateral.

Most recently, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WBG quickly mobilized over $60 million to support the relief and stimulus measures for saving lives, protecting the poor and vulnerable, and ensuring sustainability of businesses and jobs. These resources are being invested for the most essential medical and diagnostic equipment in three tertiary hospitals, nine district hospitals of the capital city and 21 aimags, personal protective equipment for frontline health workers, and training for medical staff. A new project, which would finance the vaccination of about 60 percent of Mongolians has just been approved. The Bank is also financing the temporary relief of social insurance contribution for over 120,000 self-employed workers including 72,000 women and around 150,000 workers employed by 18,000 firms affected by COVID-19. Bank support has also benefited approximately 1.19 million children through the top-up payments to the government’s Child Money Program.

After thirty years of partnership with the World Bank Group, Mongolia has become a lower-middle-income country and its vision is to become by 2050 a high-income country with high levels of human development, better quality of life, a diversified economy, and good governance. This is an aspiration we will continue to support. To turn it into reality will be challenging. The first step will be to gradually phase out short-term relief measures and return to the important agenda of structural reforms which are needed to rekindle growth and make it sustainable and inclusive. Over the medium-term, Mongolia will have to contend with the growing risks associated with climate change, and the challenges this will bring to the structure of its economy. And it will need to offer its youth the perspective of productive, well-paying jobs, to retain the country’s talents at home.

The WBG is honored to have been Mongolia’s trusted partner over the past thirty years. We are confident that our partnership will continue and further strengthen in the decades ahead, rain or shine.

BY: Martin Raiser is the World Bank Country Director for China, Korea and Mongolia

[1] Mongolia joined the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 1991; and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) in 1999. All these organizations together known as the World Bank Group.

Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia will launch a COVID-19 vaccination campaign next week, the country's Health Minister Sereejav Enkhbold said on Monday.

"The current COVID-19 lockdown in the country's capital Ulan Bator, imposed on Feb. 11, is set to expire next Tuesday. Our country is planning to start a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign from that day," Enkhbold told a press conference.

Mongolia is now working to acquire four types of COVID-19 vaccines, Enkhbold said.

The Asian country is planning to vaccinate at least 60 percent of its population of 3.3 million against COVID-19, he said, noting that 20 percent of them will be vaccinated under COVAX, a global initiative to ensure quick and equal access to vaccines against COVID-19.

As of Monday, the country has registered a total of 2,383 COVID-19 cases, with four deaths. Enditem

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2020 democracy index ranks Mongolia 61st out of 167 countries rated and classifies it as a “flawed democracy”.

The democracy index, on a 0-10 scale, is based on the ratings for 60 indicators grouped in five categories. Mongolia gained 8.75 scores in electoral process and pluralism, 5.71 scores in functioning of government, 5.56 scores in political participation, 5.63 scores in political culture and 6.76 scores in civil liberties.

The index values are used to place countries within one of four types of regime:

full democracies—scores of 8 to 10;

flawed democracies—scores of 6 to 7.9;

hybrid regimes—scores of 4 to 5.9;

authoritarian regimes—scores below 4.

Norway led the index with the highest score or 9.81, followed by Iceland (9.37), Sweden (9.26) and New Zealand (9.25).

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Minister of Finance B.Javkhlan has informed that the housing mortgage loan program will continue as normal as part of the government’s MNT10 trillion economic recovery and health protection plan presented by Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene last week.

According to the Finance Minister, around 15,000 apartments are newly commissioned each year in Mongolia and around 12,000 of them has smaller size that meets requirement for the purchase of an apartment of up to 80 square meters under the mortgage program. “Therefore, the mortgage program is available to provide loans with subsidized interest rates for around 12,000 apartments yearly.”

The economic plan sets out to enhance the loan amount and accessibility of mortgage loans and repurchase agreements by the Bank of Mongolia through commercial banks, and MNT 3 trillion will be earmarked for the mortgage loan program and development of Youth I, II and III apartment complexes in Ulaanbaatar and their infrastructures.

Since the decision was made to lower mortgage loan interest rate from 8 percent down to 6 in October 2020, more than 1,200 new mortgage agreements totalling MNT 95 billion were made only in December 2020, marking the highest amount of mortgage loans to be issued within a month.

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ At its irregular meeting convened on February 14, the Cabinet discussed a complex plan of MNT 10 trillion to protect citizens’ health and recover the economy and set up working teams to manage the plan.

Specifically, working team for recovering the economy will be headed by Minister of Finance B.Javkhlan while working team for health will be led by Minister of Health S.Enkhbold. Reminding that “One door-One testing” measure is a foundation for the realization of the complex plan, Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene noted, assigning the Cabinet members and relevant officials to pay special attention on it.

Due to the pandemic, Mongolia’s economy, which had growth of 5.2 percent in 2019, has shrunken by around 6 percent as of preliminary performance of 2020. Following it, the number of employees in over 46 thousand entities decreased by 70 thousand in the third quarter of 2020. Taking into consideration of these situations, the Cabinet has decided to simultaneously implement policy and goal to protect citizens’ health and recover the economy until 2023.

Following measures will be taken within the complex program.

To issue loan of MNT 2 trillion with annual interest rate of 3 percent with 3 years of term to small and medium enterprises

To Implement a plan to support youth employment with financing of MNT 500 billion. Within the program, youth will be involved in two-month scholarship training that equips them with the required knowledge and skills for implementing large-scale projects. Following the training, the participants will receive a certificate and MNT 1 million alongside having priority for job positions at entities implementing large-scale projects.

To implement housing program. MNT 3 trillion will be spent on giving land free of charge for building “Youth I, II, III” apartment complexes in Ulaanbaatar city in the first turn, develop their infrastructures, building the apartments under a unified blueprint and issuing mortgage soft loans.

MNT 2 trillion to be spent for realizing large scale projects and programs that are of strategic significance

To grant loan of MNT 500 billion with a view to support agricultural production, herders’ income and livelihood

To increase the amount of repo financing by the Bank of Mongolia reaching to MNT 2 trillion from MNT 1 billion In doing so, it was reflected to increase the loan amount to SMEs from MNT 300 million to MNT 500 million as well as to increase the loan amount for non-mining export product manufacturers from MNT 1 billion to MNT 3 billion.