The mining giant will distribute dividends totaling MNT 199 billion 736 million to over 2.5 million Mongolian nationals who own 18.5 percent of the total shares. The distribution is due to start on 1 May.

Despite the fact that the country is in advanced emergency readiness in prevention of COVID-19 pandemic, the mining company is operating normally. The company extracted 45.2 thousand tonnes of coal, transported 38.2 thousand and exported 49.5 thousand last week; the represents an increase of 15 thousand tonnes of coal extraction and 10 thousand tonnes of exports on the previous week.

The Solwezi licenses comprise two individual exploration licenses totalling 506 square kilometres (314 miles) situated in the North-Western Province of Zambia, adjacent to First Quantum Minerals’ Kansanshi mine — Africa’s largest copper mining complex and one of the world’s biggest copper producers.

Other notable copper operations in the region include the Sentinel mine, also owned by First Quantum, and Barrick Gold’s Lumwana mine.

As part of the agreement, Rio Tinto will make an initial payment of $700,000 to Midnight Sun, as well as fund an initial work program on the Solwezi licenses by spending $3 million, of which $2 million is a firm commitment, within the next two field seasons.

On completion, a further $300,000 will be paid to Midnight Sun before Rio proceeds with the additional expenditures.

When the initial work program is complete, Rio would earn 51% ownership of the Solwezi licenses by incurring a further $16 million in work expenditures within four years and making a total of $1 million in additional scheduled cash payments to Midnight Sun.

The company can then earn an additional 14% ownership of the licenses by incurring another $14 million in work expenditures or completing a feasibility study within three years, and making an additional $1 million in cash payments to Midnight Sun.

Afterwards, Rio Tinto can earn a further 10% ownership by spending an additional $15 million on work within two years.

In total, Rio Tinto would spend $51 million to acquire 75% ownership of the Zambian copper deposits.

Shares of Midnight Sun opened 20.2% higher on Monday with news of the Rio Tinto agreement. The junior miner has a market capitalization of C$18.3 million.

The country’s cabinet partially repealed a resolution that called for immediate action for ETT’s overseas offering, while an international share sale plan remains the goal for the long term, according to a statement posted on the government’s website on Monday. The authority urged ETT to turn its focus to a long-delayed railway project to link its Tavan Tolgoi coal mine with China.

The Mongolian coal miner was working with an adviser for preparations of a planned Hong Kong IPO that could raise more than $1 billion, Bloomberg News reported in October. The company was targeting a listing in the Asian financial hub as soon as this year, people familiar with the matter have said.

The delay comes as first-time share sales have slowed globally on weak market sentiment. Companies have raised about $2.3 billion in Hong Kong through IPOs so far this year, a 43% drop from the same period in 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Chinese biotech firm Akeso Inc. raised $333 million in the city’s biggest listing in 2020.

Tavan Tolgoi, which means “five hills,” refers to the original location of the coal ore, according to its website. Tavan Tolgoi coal mine, located in the Gobi desert, is the largest coal ore deposit in Mongolia. Its deposit is estimated at a total of over 6 billion metric tons of coal, more than one-third of which is high-grade hard coking coal, the website said.

A share sale would have marked at least a third effort to raise money to develop the Tavan Tolgoi mine after international partnerships failed in 2011 and 2015. Mongolian lawmakers in 2018 approved a plan to sell up to 30% of Tavan Tolgoi mine.

by Terrence Edwards

In Mongolia, the Bank has been working closely with the government to address the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the health sector, Mongolia was included in the WBG’s first batch of COVID-19 health emergency support operations. The Mongolia COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness project, with a total financing of US$26.9 million, will help the country meet emergency needs in the face of the pandemic and better prepare for future health crises.
In addition, US$2.2 million has been mobilized under the ongoing E-Health project to purchase the most needed medical diagnostic equipment.
Under the Strengthening Governance in Mongolia Project, funded by the European Union, US$750,000 (€ 680,000) has been reprioritized to enable the government to take more targeted just-in-time measures to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, such as assessing the potential economic impact of the pandemic, planning and monitoring of fiscal resources, and better tracking the allocation and expenditure on response measures.
The World Bank is planning to support the economic stimulus package approved by the Parliament on April 9, 2020 and is also looking for other ways to help mitigate the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Mongolia and the East Asia Pacific region. The East Asia and Pacific Regional Economic Update (April 2020) analyzes the economic impact of COVID-19 on the region and recommends policy actions countries can take to mitigate the impact, with a particular focus on protecting the poor and vulnerable.

As of April 20, 2020, Mongolia exported goods worth USD 1.3 billion. The figure represents the fall of 39.3 percent as compared with the same period of the previous year.

The export includes 3.6 million tons of coal, 2.5 million tons of iron ore, 382.9 thousand tons of copper concentrate, 176.1 thousand tons of spar, 46.7 thousand tons of zinc ore and concentrate and 395.4 thousand tons of crude oil.

The novel coronavirus is believed to have originated in a wet market in Wuhan and first emerged in December before spreading quickly worldwide. Some 2.83 million people have been reported to be infected globally and 197,872 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

“The latest news is that by April 26, the number of new coronavirus patients in Wuhan was at zero, thanks to the joint efforts of Wuhan and medical staff from around the country,” National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said at a briefing.

The city had reported 46,452 cases, 56% of the national total. It saw 3,869 fatalities, or 84% of China’s total.

Wuhan and the province of Hubei were put in lockdown near the end of January, with roads sealed, trains and planes cancelled and residents unable to move freely for more than two months. The city is still testing residents regularly despite relaxing the restrictions.

The focus has since shifted to the northeast border province of Heilongjiang, which has seen large numbers of imported coronavirus cases entering from Russia.

China’s health authority had earlier reported 11 new coronavirus cases on the mainland on April 25, down from 12 the previous day, with no fatalities.

To see an interactive graphic tracking the global spread of coronavirus: open tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Kim Coghill

All tests of the French citizen were negative, he recovered and was transferred to a private resort.

As of April 27, Mongolia has confirmed a total of 38 COVID-19 cases and 9 of them recovered.

The rest are under treatment at the National Center for Communicable Disease.

The COVID-19 infection was first reported in Mongolia on March 10. The case was imported, a French citizen who arrived in Ulaanbaatar on March 2 transiting through Moscow tested positive.

In a letter to workers, seen by news outlets, Guillaume Faury is said to have warned the company was "bleeding cash at an unprecedented speed".

This month the firm announced it was cutting aircraft production by a third.

It comes as the aviation industry is expected to shrink significantly in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Mr Faury also told Airbus' 135,000 staff to brace for potentially deep job cuts and warned that its survival was at stake without immediate action, according to the Reuters news agency.

Airbus is this week due to deliver financial results for the first quarter of the year. Those figures will be overshadowed by the pandemic that has left global airlines struggling to survive and almost completely halted plane deliveries since lockdowns started in March.

Greg Waldron, from the aviation industry news website Flight Global, highlighted the huge impact of coronavirus on Airbus and the sector as a whole, saying: "Every assumption we had about the industry has been totally upended."

"The outlook for Airbus has gone from very positive to very negative. There's simply no demand for new aircraft at the moment."

In response to the pandemic Airbus had already begun implementing government-assisted furlough schemes starting with 3,000 workers in France and said it would lower output of its narrow-body jets to 40 a month.

Airbus has around 13,500 workers in the UK, with most of them making wings at its two major sites in Broughton, north Wales, and Filton, Bristol.

Despite the major blow the coronavirus has dealt to Airbus, Mr Waldron thinks it will survive this crisis but not without significant layoffs.

"Airbus is a crucially important industrial programme for Europe, I think Europe will be committed to keeping Airbus going," he said.

"However, there's going to be a great deal of pain to go through. If they cut production rates quite significantly you're going to see large numbers of layoffs. I would expect in a few years years you'll see a smaller leaner Airbus than what we have now."

Airbus did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the BBC.