The Mongolian Government debts have risen from over USD 4 billion to USD 7 billion. The country issued its first ever bond in 2012. However, Mongolia’s credit ratings and interests on debts have changed gradually over the 2012-2016 period. Mongolia issued the famous Chinggis Bond with 5.175 percent interest in 2012; increased to 11.7 percent in 2016. During the period, Mongolia’s credit ratings have been downgraded 3-4 times and interest on foreign debts have risen by 2.6 times.

As for August, 2019, inflation stood at 8.9 percent; an increase of 1.2 percent from July; this was due to the increase in the price of flour and meat combined with the annual burden of university and other educational fees.

The construction of the 1,100-meter overpass, which started in April last year, was built by China Railway 20 Bureau Group Co., Ltd.

Witnesses at the opening ceremony include senior officials from China and Mongolia: the Chinese Ambassador to Mongolia Xing Haiming, Mongolian Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, Mongolian Minister of Road and Transport Development Byambasuren Enkh-Amgalan and Mayor of Mongolia's capital Ulan Bator Sainbuyan Amarsaikhan.

The Chinese ambassador expressed hope that the overpass can effectively reduce the interference of railways on municipal roads, reduce traffic congestion, facilitate travel for citizens, and play an important role in accelerating the modernization of Ulan Bator's road traffic.

For his part, the Mongolian prime minister expressed his sincere thanks to the Chinese side for the strong support and assistance to Mongolia's development.

"Ulan Bator was originally built with a plan to have 500,000 residents. Today, the city has become a big city home to around half of the country's population of 3.2 million," Khurelsukh said at the ceremony.

"As the city expands, the country has been suffering urban diseases, especially traffic jam. I am fully confident that the China-funded overpass can contribute significantly to reduce traffic congestion in the capital city," said Khurelsukh.

At the occasion, Xing said that the 2019 year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of China-Mongolia diplomatic relations, the 25th anniversary of the revision of the Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation between China and Mongolia, and the 5th anniversary of the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership.

This year, the pragmatic bilateral cooperation ushered in a bumper harvest, with a number of major cooperation projects completed, said Xing.

Since the beginning of this year, with Chinese non-refundable aid and soft loans, several such high-standard and modern facilities as a development center for disabled children, highways, overpasses and agricultural machinery have been handed over to the Mongolian side, reflecting the high level of pragmatic cooperation between the two countries, according to the ambassador.

During her two-day visit, Stoiljkovic will meet senior government officials, representatives from financial institutions, and business leaders and visit projects supported by IFC, the largest global development organization working with the private sector in emerging markets.

“Mongolia is a unique country, with unique opportunities and challenges,” Stoiljkovic said. “IFC has been working in Mongolia since 1997 to help support the country meet its development challenges. I am keen to hear first-hand how IFC can do more to help Mongolia further diversify its economy and spur jobs for people, particularly Mongolia’s youth.”

IFC has been operating in Mongolia since 1997 and providing finance across many sectors, including banking, healthcare, hospitality, mining and services. Our most recent investment was a $65 million loan package to XacBank to support access to finance for more than 44,000 micro, small and medium sized enterprises in Mongolia. Support of MSMEs will continue to be one of our main focus areas.

“We know too many enterprises have been struggling to gain access to the finance they need to expand their businesses and create jobs,” Stoiljkovic said. “This financing will clearly help and IFC is also keen to explore other opportunities for investments to help the country build a more competitive, sustainable and diversified economy.”

IFC and its sister organization, the World Bank, both members of the World Bank Group, have been providing policy advice and technical support to Mongolia to enhance investment policy, restore investor confidence, diversify exports, and build institutional capacities.

Over the past 22 years, IFC has invested $2.6 billion — $849 million from its own account and $1.77 billion in syndication — in 35 private-sector projects across Mongolia’s key industries.

Source: IFC

2. The official programme of President Battulga includes a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan, visit to Rajghat, meetings with President, Vice-President and Prime Minister. A Banquet will be hosted by President Kovind in honour of the visiting President. President Battulga will also participate in an India-Mongolia Business Forum in New Delhi.

3. During the visit the two sides will hold in-depth discussions on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues and will also review ongoing cooperation in fields of infrastructure, energy, disaster management, defence, security, culture and capacity building.

4. India and Mongolia had established a Strategic Partnership in 2015 during the visit of Prime Minister Modi to Mongolia. A number of high-level exchanges have taken place since then. The partnership has seen considerable progress during the last few years. India-Mongolia Strategic Partnership is based on the ideals of freedom and democracy and on a strong foundation of our shared Buddhist heritage. India is executing an Oil Refinery Project under its Line of Credit of US$ 1 billion announced during the vist of Prime Minister Modi in 2015.

5. The State visit of H.E. Battulga will help in further deepening and broadening the Strategic Partnership between India and Mongolia.

New Delhi
September 16, 2019

The first straight contract for EKG-12K was signed in the end of 2018. Another contract for one more EKG-12K shovel was signed in the beginning of 2019. The first EKG-12K started working in April, the second EKG-12K will start working in the end of October.

Erdenet Mining Corporation Chief Engineer Belyankin said: “The operation of IZ-KARTEX shovel within 6 months confirmed the technical parameters declared by the manufacturer. We do not have any complaints to this machine. The recent scheduled inspection showed that the shovel is in the perfect condition. According to his words, next year the company is going to buy two more shovels of the same capacity. Now, UZTM-KARTEX negotiates for shovels’ supply with other Mongolian mining enterprises.

Share in total supply of EKG-12K increases annually. It is expected that in 2019 this share will increase by 9.5 % compared with previous year and will reach 30% including exports.

In general, IZ-KARTEX notes the stable growth of demand for shovels from mining enterprises of far abroad. From 2010 - 2019, twenty IZ-KARTEX shovels were supplied to enterprises of far abroad, which is seven units more than in the previous decade. The main IZ-KARTEX consumers of far abroad are the enterprises from India, China, Mongolia, Vietnam and others.

Why it matters: Inner Mongolia’s municipal-level governments in recent years have looked to cryptocurrency mining as an opportunity to transform its less-developed economy.

Some mining operations have established partnerships with local governments to gain access to cheap power. However, there are still many small-scale, illicit mining operations in China that are flying under the radar.
Regulators previously proposed phasing out crypto mining, however, the actual process for implementation remains largely ambiguous. Some industry watchers doubt that the move will have a substantial impact.

Details: Five departments of Inner Mongolia’s provincial-level government including the Financial Office, Development and Reform Commission, the Office of the Ministry of Industry, the Big Data Bureau, and the Public Security Department issued a notice stating that the cryptocurrency mining industry is a pseudo-financial innovation irrelevant to the real economy, and therefore should not be supported.

The plan to clear out the mining industry from the province will take place in two phases. The first phase is self-examination and self-reporting, which takes place in September. The second phase will be implemented in October, during which authorities will carry out the supervision and rectification work.
Context: A majority of the world’s cryptocurrency mining activity is concentrated in China because of its abundance of cheap electricity. The coal-rich Inner Mongolia is an area that crypto miners prefer to set up shop. Other provinces including southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan with inexpensive hydroelectric power are also popular destinations.

In April, the National Development and Reform Commission proposed to phase out Bitcoin mining, a move that could have a serious impact since Chinese mining pools account for a majority of Bitcoin’s hash power.
The country has ousted much of cryptocurrency activities including initial coin offerings (ICOs) and exchange services. However, China’s attitude towards mining activities remains ambiguous and no outright ban has yet been entered into law.
Authorities for Ordos, a city in Inner Mongolia, offer Bitmain, a major Chinese cryptocurrency mining rig seller, special pricing on electricity 30% cheaper than rates that other industrial companies in the area pay.

The prime contractor of the construction is the General Staff of the Mongolian Armed Forces and some 15 domestic entities are working as subcontractors. Although the performance level of subcontractors on the construction of the lower structure of the railway varies, the work is scheduled to be completed by 20 October and other development works, including building of dam foundation and sidetracks could be continued until the end of December this year despite of cold weather, as introduced by the project team to the President Kh.Battulga.

On the construction site of the railway, President Kh.Battulga and his accompanying officials, Minister of Transport and Road Development B.Enkh-Amgalan, Chief of the General Staff of the Mongolian Armed Forces A.Ganbat and authorities of the Mongolian Railways company and Ulaanbaatar Railways joint stock companies discussed about the development works scheduled until December 2019.

The President was informed that around 20 thousand concrete sleepers to cover 5 km road are already manufactured ready for use, the construction of 10 km road from Zuunbayan station is only 25 percent fulfilled, to which President Kh.Battulga ordered the corresponding officials to take certain measures to handle the issue of inadequate performance. In order to finish the railway design works in cooperation with the Mongolian Railways and Ulaanbaatar Railways companies in an urgent manner, and activate the development works, the President advised to give payment on a per-task basis and carry out more effective management system.

The expectation of keeping the policy rate unchanged at 11 percent is dominant among economists of the Economics Club of Bloomberg TV Mongolia. However, the number of votes on increasing or decreasing the policy rates has risen slightly over the previous review. The basis for maintaining the monetary policy rate, for example, macroeconomic indicators are near target levels.

According to the Bloomberg TV Mongolia, the number of analysts assumes BoM to increase the policy rate due to high inflation. However, there are still possibilities that the policy rate could be reduced during steady economic growth.

Last month, the Monetary Policy Committee decided to keep the monetary policy rate untouched at 11 percent, which is the highest since December 2019. The monetary policy statement emphasized the basic demand-pull inflation was stable at the time.

In the first eight months of 2019, Mongolia’s total trade turnover reached USD 9.5 billion, of which USD 5.4 billion were exports and USD 4.1 billion were imports. Foreign trade surplus increased by USD 426.6 million to USD 1.3 billion.

The economic growth was 7.2 percent in 2018 and increased to 7.3 percent in the first half of 2019. Foreign exchange reserves of Mongolia reached USD 3.6 billion.

In the place of coal, the government is offering a more expensive but more efficient briquette made of coal from the Tavan Tolgoi mine. Besides being more efficient with a higher calorific value, the briquettes emit less smoke when they burn. The government plans to distribute 600,000 tons of briquettes at selling points throughout the city.

According to one source, the government has set quotas of 3 tonnes of briquettes per household this winter. Special electronic cards will be distributed free for buying the briquettes and controlling the quotas.

Air pollution in Mongolia is caused, in part, by Ulaanbaatar’s topography, climatic conditions, rapidly increasing population, poor infrastructure and heavy reliance on coal for up to eight months of the year. Nearly half of Mongolia’s population – 1.5 million – resides in Ulaanbaatar where the vast majority of Mongolia’s air pollution crisis is caused by those living in the ger districts on the hillsides on the north side of the city. Named for the traditional nomadic dwellings of Mongolia’s herding lifestyle, a ger is a circular tent with bedding and furniture surrounding the stove: the one thing making the harsh climate of Mongolia bearable.

As the world’s coldest capital, Ulaanbaatar can see temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius – contributing to the population’s heavy use of coal to keep warm. In fact, to keep warm from the harsh Mongolian weather, Ulaanbaatar residents have been burning over a million tons of raw coal per year.