Prime Minister Boris Johnson estimates about 300,000 Hong Kong citizens will take advantage of a new visa route to leave the former British colony and settle in the U.K., despite nearly three million people being eligible.

The new procedure honors the “profound ties of history and friendship” between the province and Britain, Johnson said in a statement.

The route, which opens on Sunday, was offered after the U.K. said China’s imposition of a National Security Law breached the terms of the joint agreement made between the two nations when Hong Kong was handed over to Beijing’s control in 1997.

Between 123,000 and 153,700 British National (Overseas) status holders and their dependents are expected to use the route to the U.K. in the first year, rising to between 258,000 and 322,400 over five years, according to Home Office estimates.

The visa fee to stay for five years will be 250 pounds ($343) per person alongside an immigration health surcharge of as much as 624 pounds per year.

“We have been clear we won’t look the other way when it comes to Hong Kong,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in an e-mailed statement. “We will live up to our historic responsibility to its people.”

Relations between London and Beijing are at a modern low as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the treatment of Hong Kong protesters and allegations of human rights abuses of Uighur Muslims. China denies any mistreatment.

Mongolian imports fell to an eight-month low in December as the country’s first local transmission of Covid-19 cases in the previous month compelled stricter checks at the Chinese border crossings, largely reducing the number of trucks passing daily. Mongolian imports for the whole of 2020 fell by 30 percent on the previous year.

China’s December coking coal imports fell to the lowest level in 2020 as Australian shipments dropped to zero because of an informal import ban, while Chinese mills ramped up offtake of non-Australian origin coal.

China imported 3.57 million tonnes of coking coal last month, down by 4 percent from 3.72 million tonnes in November but up by 110 percent from December 2019, according to Chinese customs data. The country’s overall 2020 imports fell by 3 percent on the year.

Canada’s Turquoise Hill Resources (TSX, NYSE: TRQ) is seeking an interim order in its arbitration against Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) as some of the top miner’s actions could limit Turquoise Hill’s funding options for the vast Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold-silver mine in Mongolia.

Tensions between Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill’s management and minority shareholders have grabbed headlines in recent months. The two companies are at odds over roles and obligations in securing the remaining funding for the underground expansion of the mine.

The Vancouver-based miner says Rio is using “certain procedures under contractual arrangements” that could grant it the right to pursue re-profiling negotiations with existing lenders.

Turquoise Hill added that Rio would do so in a manner the company considers will render Erdenes Oyu Tolgoi LLC, the Mongolian state-owned company that owns a third of the mine, unable to execute an offering of bonds in 2021.

If executed, Rio’s tactics would also compel Turquoise Hill to refrain from engaging on funding and other matters with its other stakeholders, including our Erdenes Oyu Tolgoi LLC and the government of Mongolia, it said.

Turquoise Hill, majority owned by Rio Tinto, had expected the underground expansion to cost $5.3 billion when it was approved in 2015. Last year, however, Turquoise Hill flagged stability risks associated with the original project design, adding that amendments to it could increase costs by as much as an additional $1.9 billion.

Turquoise Hill also warned at the time of further delays of up to two and a half years, with first sustainable production from Oyu Tolgoi’s underground expansion expected between May 2022 and June 2023.

Rio Tinto had said in September it planned to raise up to $500 million through additional lending to develop the giant copper mine. The move, Rio said, would reduce the remaining funding requirement of the expansion to up to $1.4 billion.

By reprofiling, the parties sought more time to repay their debt, knowing that the principal of the extended debt, or in some cases even the interest rate on it, are not reduced.

Any remaining funding for the underground mine, Rio vowed, was to be met through a Turquoise Hill equity offering.

Mulling options

Turquoise is simultaneously advancing its evaluation of financing options for Oyu Tolgoi. Such alternatives include additional debt from banks or international financial institutions, an offering of global medium-term notes and a gold streaming transaction, it said.

The company had previously disclosed it was facing a funding shortfall for Oyu’s expansion of up to $4 billion, including balance sheet servicing costs.

Once completed, the underground section of Oyu Tolgoi will lift production from 125,000–150,000 tonnes in 2019 to 560,000 tonnes at peak output, which is now expected by 2025 at the earliest. This would make it the biggest new copper mine to come on stream in several years.

Oyu Tolgoi, located in the South Gobi desert near the border with China, produced 35,203 tonnes of copper and 26,154 ounces of gold in the first three months of this year.

Rio Tinto owns the mine through its majority stake in Turquoise Hill, which has a 66% interest in Oyu Tolgoi. The Mongolian state has the remaining 34% of the operation.

Turquoise Hill’s move comes a day after Rio’s new chief executive, Jakob Stausholm, overhauled the senior leadership team and created two new roles, as he seeks to repair damage to the company’s reputation stemming from last year’s destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal site in Australia.

It is rare for anti-government demonstrators to see their demands met after a single day of protest. Yet the crowds of Mongolians who braved the biting cold of their capital, Ulaanbaatar, calling for heads to roll because of the mistreatment of a hospital patient got what they wanted—and more. Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, the prime minister, announced the resignation of his entire government.

“The joke all over Ulaanbaatar is that the prime minister’s resignation shocked even the protesters,” says a bigwig of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (mpp). But far from a joking matter, this episode, along with other recent goings-on, shows that Mongolia is bogged in the same old mire that has held back the country since it threw off Russia’s domination more than three decades ago and took up democracy. Politics has been turbulent, sometimes clownish. Corruption is widespread. And the mining industry, which dominates the economy, is still woefully mismanaged.

Though Mr Khurelsukh ostentatiously portrayed his resignation as a gesture of accountability, many see it as a cynical ploy to polish his image in the run-up to presidential elections scheduled for June. The protest’s immediate cause was a relatively minor matter: the apparent mistreatment of a woman who, after giving birth, was diagnosed with covid-19 and then brusquely transferred to a hospital for infectious diseases. A widely aired video, showing her in a dressing gown and slippers being moved outdoors with her baby in the bitter cold and into an ambulance, sparked the angry demonstrations.

Mr Khurelsukh remains chairman of the mpp and is likely to keep pulling the strings. His replacement as prime minister is a close ally. Observers in Ulanbaatar are comparing the resignation to political manoeuvres in neighbouring Russia and nearby Kazakhstan. They note that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, once swapped jobs for four years with his prime minister without letting go of the reins. The long-serving ruler of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has retained great influence over his handpicked successor since resigning in 2019.

Mr Khurelsukh is thought to be planning a run for president, and may want to distance himself from unpopular policies that could be a liability in the campaign. The demonstrators complained not only about the treatment of the new mother but also about the mishandling of the pandemic by the government. It has tried to suppress transmission through an economically ruinous lockdown. Unemployment is high and frustration with public-health restrictions is growing.

The incumbent president, Khaltmaagiin Battulga, who first earned fame as a wrestler, may find himself pinned down by a new constitutional amendment that limits presidents to a single six-year term instead of two four-year stints. He has been in office for four years. The courts will have to decide whether he can stand again.

Whoever wins the election will face some familiar problems. Politicians are again bickering over the terms of a deal with Rio Tinto, a mining firm that is the manager of and a big shareholder in the Oyu Tolgoi gold-and-copper mine, Mongolia’s biggest mining project. Successive Mongolian governments have tinkered endlessly with the ownership, taxation and financing of the mine, in which it currently owns a one-third stake, to secure a better deal for the country.

Camped outside parliament as it voted to approve the new prime minister was Sainkhuu Ganbaatar, an mp who ran for president last time around. He is on a hunger strike to press the new government to assert itself against Rio Tinto. He narrowly missed qualifying for the run-off in 2017, with more than 30% of the vote. His message remains the same: corrupt individuals have taken their cut while selling the country short. Other bigwigs have come under fire for owning fancy homes in Hong Kong, London and New York.

The mining controversy and corruption seem certain to dominate the campaign. And disgruntled demonstrators are sure to have plenty to protest against.

Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia confirmed 25 more COVID-19 cases after 15,202 tests had been carried out in the last 24 hours, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Thursday.

The latest cases were locally transmitted or detected in the country's capital Ulan Bator, Amarjargal Ambaselmaa, head of the surveillance department of the NCCD, said at a daily press conference.

Meanwhile, eight more patients have recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of recoveries in the country to 1,244, Ambaselmaa added.

The Asian country has confirmed 1,692 COVID-19 cases so far, including 1,282 locally transmitted ones.

The country with a population of 3.3 million has so far registered two COVID-19-related deaths. Enditem

Two mine shovels EKG-12K made by IZ-KARTEX, St.-Petersburg (a member of UZTM-KARTEX group) are commissioned at the works of PGS "Erdenet Company" (Mongolia). The Mongolian mining company procured new Russian machines within the framework of a company development project.

Erdenet is the leading Mongolian state-owned company engaged in mining and processing copper-molybdenum ore. The company is currently upgrading its facilities: total investments for the previous year amounted to about 245 million USD.

While implementing their investment program, Erdenet has procured four EKG-12K mine shovels from IZ-KARTEX since 2018: the first one has been supplied in 2018, the second in 2019, and two more machines have been commissioned last December. According to Mr. B. Otgondava, the manager of an open-cast mine owned by PGS "Erdenet Company", the company decided to procure machines made by IZ-KARTEX because these machines are optimally adapted to the conditions of Mongolian mines.

"We are satisfied with the performance of machines made by IZ-KARTEX. These machines are very reliable and user-friendly. We expect the new machines to show high performance level and stable trouble-free operation", says the chief engineer of an open-cast mine of PGS "Erdenet Company", Mr. D. Ulammandah.

Today Erdenet company is using 11 different models of earth-moving machinery made by IZ-KARTEX.

About PGS "Erdenet Company":

PGS "Erdenet Company" is one of the largest Asian mining companies and the leading Mongolian company in the field of mining and processing copper-molybdenum ore. In the year 2020 Erdenet reported processing more than 32.5 million ton of ore. Since 2017 the company has spent more than 27 million dollars towards geological survey works increasing its ore reserves in the deep part of the deposit and plotting several perspective areas of the deposit of strategic importance.

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. At its plenary session held on January 28, the State Great Khural of Mongolia rejected a line-item veto imposed by President of Mongolia Battulga Khaltmaa on the Law against Corruption, adopted on December 30, 2020. The proposal to reject the veto has been forwarded by the parliament’s standing committees to the parliament.

On January 22, the President invoked a line-item veto on Article 1 of the Amendments to the Law Against Corruption, which rules that the Director of the Independent Agency Against Corruption (IAAC) to be appointed at the recommendation of Prime Minister for a 6-year term.

At the parliament’s session, member of the parliament S.Byambatsogt noted that the recent amendment to the Law against Corruption is in compliance with the amendments to the Constitution of Mongolia, which authorizes the government with powers to take measures for the fight against and prevention of crime. “Therefore, the corruption law was amended so that the Head of the Anti-Corruption Agency will be appointed on the nomination of the Prime Minister. According to him, the Constitution also defines eight functions to be exercised within the powers of the President of Mongolia, and the President cannot have power over anything other than the eight functions.

At today’s session, the parliament also approved to reject President’s another partial veto on the revised Law on Courts, adopted January 15. As viewed by the President, the revised law, which states that members of the General Council of Courts and Judicial Disciplinary Committee will be appointed by a working group headed by a parliament member and established by the Parliament Speaker, could bring the General Council of Courts and Judicial Disciplinary Committee under the influence of the legislative body and the ruling party.

As explained by the member of parliament Kh.Nyambaatar, the revised law creates the condition to appoint the members of the General Council of Courts and Judicial Disciplinary Committee through open and transparent selection conducted by the 11-member working group made up of representatives of different judicial bodies, and a parliamentary hearing will be held on the appointment. “It will help to avoid the system where judicial organs and their members are selected by a single person.”

Last week, Mongolian Prime Minister Khurelsukh Ukhnaa resigned, offering a grand gesture of accountability to recent protests over COVID-19 measures. On January 27, 2021, a new prime minister, Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, was confirmed by parliament with 87.9 percent approval.

The new prime minister is safeguarding Khurelsukh’s cabinet. He stated that one of his immediate plans would be expediting COVID-19 vaccinations, which can have an enormous effect on the economy. Moreover, the prime minister’s supportive position in the Mongolia-Rio Tinto renegotiation over the Oyu Tolgoi mine is getting attention. Once the COVID-19 situation is handled, his cabinet also plans to establish a Digital Development ministry.

Khurelsukh’s resignation may have opened an opportunity for a younger generation leader. With Oyun-Erdene, Mongolia is welcoming a 40-year-old prime minister who did not participate in the 1990 democratic revolution and has been educated to develop a specific focus on policy rather than politics. Having grown up in the countryside, Oyun-Erdene graduated from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University with a Masters of Public Policy.

During his time as chief cabinet secretary, Oyun-Erdene has dedicated himself to “Vision 2050,” Mongolia’s long-term development strategy. Vision 2050 is a solutions-based integrated strategy that aims to implement good governance, citizen-based government services, and economic policies to strengthen Mongolia’s potential. The plan also calls for Mongolia to participate in economic integration, fight against climate change, and strive for sustainable development. “Vision 2050 combines international experience, policy examples from countries such as Singapore, Estonia, and other successfully developed countries,” says Batnairamdal Otgonshar, vice minister of Mining and Heavy Industry.

One successful implementation example is the launch of Mongolia’s e-governance model – in the middle of the COVID-19 outbreak. “Around 8,000 people are on e-mongolia on a daily basis and usage has increased three times more since the nation’s lockdown,” Bolor-Erdene Battsengel, the director of the Communications and Information Technology Authority, told The Diplomat.

The fact that Oyun-Erdene has focused so much attention on this project is unusual as Vision 2050 purports to be focused on the implementation of policies – something that many Mongolian and foreign-financed plans have failed to do. This policy focus signals a sea change in Mongolian political culture. The country is moving away from political leaders who were primarily trained in the Soviet bloc and its successor states and who have followed party careers (in the case of the Mongolia People’s Party, MPP) or were “heroes” of the 1990 revolution (in the case of the Democratic Party, DP). The looming economic challenge is now inherited by a younger generation of leaders.

Khurelsukh’s resignation came unexpectedly but is a logical step on his way to a run at the presidency. In Mongolia’s hybrid parliamentary-presidential system, a new president will be elected this June, though for a single term of six years under the 2019 constitutional amendments. The same amendments strengthened the position of the prime minister, but a bid for the presidency seems like a natural step for Khurelsukh, who – while an effective political manager – has shown no indication of a specific political agenda and thus seems well suited to a prestigious, but less active, office. Khurelsukh was expected to seek MPP’s nomination for the presidential election.

Last summer’s parliamentary election saw Khurelsukh consolidate his hold over the MPP. It is widely believed that Oyun-Erdene has ascended to the prime ministership through his association with Khurelsukh. A second-term MP, Oyun-Erdene has served as the chief cabinet secretary in both of Khurelsukh’s cabinets. His re-appointment to the post this past July was particularly significant as prime ministers are restricted in appointing only four MPs to the cabinet.

While the DP has rebuffed internal demands for generational change, in last year’s parliamentary election the National Labor Party (referred to by its Mongolian acronym, XUN) became the new force in parliament, led by individuals who share some characteristics with Oyun-Erdene: younger, Western-educated professionals.

Instead of working within the established parties, many in Oyun-Erdene’s peer group are attempting to build an alternative in the XUN. While they only won a single seat in parliament, they are likely to continue emphasizing generational change. Neither Oyun-Erdene nor XUN is distinguished by a robust political platform beyond a pragmatic drive for good practice.

The appointment of Oyun-Erdene offers the possibility of transformative generational change in Mongolia’s leadership. The newly elected prime minister represents a younger generation of leaders that have studied abroad, exposed to democratic principles, societies, and policies. While this might be refreshing, this does not mean the MPP will live up to its policy goals. It is still one of the established political parties, and the party might be even more firmly in charge now. As is well known, great power is more likely to lead to more significant corruption. On the other hand, the recent protest once again reminds us of Mongolia’s democratic upbringing, and the emergence of another wave of youth involvement in Mongolia’s political environment.

BY: Bolor Lkhaajav holds an M.A. in Asia-Pacific Studies from the University of San Francisco. She is a frequent writer and commentator on Mongolian politics and foreign policy and is currently writing a book on Mongolia’s foreign policy. She is also a co-host of the 77 Nation political podcast, based in Washington, D.C.

Julian Dierkes teaches in the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. He also serves as one of the principal writers of the Mongolia Focus blog.

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On January 26, the parliamentary standing committee on economy discussed an additional financing agreement between Mongolia and the International Development Association (IDA) for COVID-19 prevention, response and preparedness project in Mongolia. The draft agreement was submitted by the cabinet on January 21, 2021.

Acting Minister of Finance Ch.Khurelbaatar introduced that Mongolia is arranging all necessary preparations to import vaccines against COVID-19. “Coronavirus vaccination campaign or a national plan on receiving and distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 and immunization activities has been agreed to be carried out using USD 50.7 million soft loan from the IDA, a member of the World Bank Group.”

It was informed by the Minister that USD 19 million from the IDA financing will be spent for purchasing COVID-19 vaccines, USD 13 million for cold chain equipment upgrade, USD 7 million for training and capacity building of healthcare workers, USD 1.5 million for coronavirus vaccine-related infrastructure development.

“Up to 60 percent of the population will be vaccinated within the framework of the vaccination campaign and a complex set of actions will be taken from procurement to transportation, cold chain storage, delivery infrastructure and distribution” said the Finance Minister. “More than 8,000 healthcare workers will be trained and prepared for the vaccination campaign.”

According to Khurelbaatar, who chairs the working group established by the government in charge of COVID-19 vaccine procurement, preparations have been completed so that Mongolia is ready to receive 1 million 847 thousand doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, 2 million 358 thousand doses of Moderna vaccines and 2 million 516 thousand doses of AstraZeneca vaccines in the first place.

The financing agreement will further be discussed at relevant parliamentary standing committees and plenary meeting.

Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia has added 11 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, after 12,703 tests were conducted across the country, the National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Wednesday.

The new cases were locally transmitted. Two of them were found in a bus heading to the western Mongolian province of Khovd from capital Ulan Bator, Amarjargal Ambaselmaa, head of the NCCD's surveillance department, told a press conference.

The authorities said that more than 40 passengers on that bus were then quarantined. They were brought back from Darvi soum of the Khovd province to Ulan Bator on a special flight on Wednesday.

Mongolia has confirmed a total of 1,667 COVID-19 cases so far, including 1,200 locally transmitted ones.

Meanwhile, 25 more patients have recovered from the disease, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,236, said Ambaselmaa.

The Asian country, with a population of around 3.3 million, has recorded two COVID-19-related deaths so far. Enditem