The fund will support the sustainable extraction and processing of minerals and metals used in clean energy technologies, such as wind, solar power, and batteries for energy storage and electric vehicles.

The World Bank is targeting a total investment of $50 million, to be deployed over a 5-year timeframe. The fund will focus on activities around four core themes: climate change mitigation; climate change adaptation; reducing material impacts and creating market opportunities, contributing to the decarbonization and reduction of material impacts along the supply chain of critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies.

The facility evolves out of a World Bank report “The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low-Carbon Future” which found that a low-carbon future will be significantly more mineral intensive than a ‘business as usual’ scenario. Global demand for strategic minerals like lithium, graphite and nickel will skyrocket by 965%, 383% and 108% respectively by 2050, according to the World Bank’s updated 2018 projections

Global demand for strategic minerals like lithium, graphite and nickel will skyrocket by 965%, 383% and 108% respectively by 2050, according to the World Bank’s updated 2018 projections, which are based on the assumption that countries will implement the Paris Agreement.

The multi-donor trust fund will work with developing countries and emerging economies to implement sustainable and responsible strategies and practices across the mineral value chain.

Partners include the German government and private sector companies, Rio Tinto and Anglo American. The Facility will also assist governments to build a robust policy, regulatory and legal framework that promotes climate-smart mining and creates an enabling environment for private capital.

Projects may include supporting the integration of renewable energy into mining operations, given that the mining sector accounts for up to 11%of global energy use and that mining operations in remote areas often rely on diesel or coal; supporting the strategic use of geological data for a better understanding of “strategic mineral” endowments; forest-smart mining; preventing deforestation and supporting sustainable land-use practices; repurposing mine sites and recycling of minerals and supporting developing countries to take a circular economy approach and reuse minerals in a way that respects the environment.

Before joining Kinross, Giardini served as senior vice president and CFO at Capstone Mining. Between 2006 and 2012, he was CFO of the original Ivanhoe Mines (now Turquoise Hill Resources), which was advancing the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia. Prior to that, he spent 10 years at Placer Dome (now Barrick Gold).

"It is a great privilege to once again work alongside Robert and the rest of the Ivanhoe team to lead Ivanhoe into our next chapter of growth," Giardini commented.

In addition, the company has announced that CEO Lars-Eric Johansson will retire by the end of June.

Johansson has been at the helm of Ivanhoe Mines and its predecessor since May 2007. He led the company through its $300 million initial public offering in 2012, which now has the assets to become a major producer of copper, zinc and nickel.

This significant decline was directly related to the expiration of the effective period of low royalty taxes on gold with the 2014 amendments to the Minerals Law.

The 2.5-percent of discounted royalty on gold mining ended on 1 Jan. Since then until 7 April, 5 to 10 percent royalty taxes on gold mining have been imposed on miners.

In March, the Mongolian parliament decided to set the gold royalty at a 5-percent rate to revive the central bank’s gold purchase.

Purchasing gold is said to be one of the key instruments for the Mongolian Central Bank to revive its official foreign exchange reserves.

Minister of Environment and Tourism N.Tserenbat said, “Without being disheartened by the gobi region, its water shortage and dust storms, the project team of the Greenbelt Plantation Project has worked on the restoration of 500 hectares of forest area and 1540 hectares of saxaul forest, alongside establishing a tree nursery for rare plants and a training center, through which they gave ecological knowledge to thousands of citizens and children, and provided 848 citizens in Dalanzadgad and Bayanzag soums with jobs until 2017. As the Greenbelt Plantation Project is one of the major projects being successfully implemented in Mongolia, I hope that the local authorities give more priority to the project, further strengthening the trust between the two countries.

With project financing, the Government of Mongolia established the inter-soum forest unit in Umnugobi in 2013, training them in the protection of an area of 50 hectares. The Ministry planned to allocate the forest area to forest units, professional forestry organizations, environmental NGOs, and citizens for protections.”

Comprehensive irrigation systems, infrastructure and equipment, which have total worth of MNT4.4 billion, have been installed at the forest area, training center and tree nursery. The project will also finance MNT250 million for the first year’s maintenance of 624 hectares area, which will be allocated from the state budget or local financing afterwards.

The second phase of the Greenbelt Plantation Project is to focus on developing green spaces in Ulaanbaatar, and establishing recreational green space until 2022.

Head of the department in charge of child protection at the National Police Agency (NPA) Davaasambuu Budzaan made the declaration in Ulan Bator.

According to the NPA head, "we are there launching a year-long national campaign called 'Child Protector' to protect children's rights."

Parents ought to play a role in safeguarding their kids from crimes, the chief affirmed, highlighting their significant part.

Budzaan further added that the national project looks to reduce crime through boosting parental supervision and attention.

First quarter growth in the 19 countries that use the euro was 0.4% compared to the previous three months, according to preliminary data published Tuesday. That's double the rate posted in the final quarter of 2018.
The strength of the performance surprised economists, who said it was fueled by lower unemployment, rising wages and stronger consumer demand.

The results are the latest piece of evidence to suggest that the world's largest economies are in better shape than many analysts feared.
China had lost momentum due to a government crackdown on risky lending and the drag exerted by the US trade war. Beijing responded with stimulus measures including business tax cuts, infrastructure projects and looser monetary policy. The country's economy topped expectations in the first quarter with growth of 6.4%.
The US economy grew at a better than expected rate of 3.2%, thanks to stronger state and local government spending, lower imports and business inventories.
Brexit, which could have derailed the UK economy and harmed its neighbors, has been postponed, most likely until the end of October.
Florian Hense, an economist at Berenberg bank, said the developments suggest that 2019 may not be as gloomy as some expected.
"Over the past few weeks, US-China trade tensions have eased, news from China have suggested the Chinese stimulus may have started to work and the risk of an immediate hard Brexit has receded," he said.
Europe on track
Additional data on big European economies published Tuesday bolsters the thesis.
Spain's GDP increased 0.7% over the previous three months, an improvement on the 0.6% rate posted last quarter. France maintained growth of 0.3% while Italy picked up pace slightly to 0.2%.
Data on the region's largest economy, Germany, has not yet been released. But survey data suggest a positive trend after the country narrowly avoided a recession at the end of 2018.
The United Kingdom said earlier this month that GDP grew 0.3% in the three months to the end of February. While that was stronger than expected, economists said some of the growth was caused by businesses stockpiling ahead of the original Brexit date of March 29.

Statistics published Tuesday showed that unemployment across the European Union dropped to 7.7% in March, the lowest since September 2008.
"We can say that calls for a eurozone recession were certainly premature," said Peter Vanden Houte, ING's chief economist for Belgium and the eurozone.
Yet he cautioned against complacency.
"Not much has to go wrong to bring GDP growth to a standstill," said Vanden Houte.

This is not the first time that the two major oil importers are working to create such an oil club.

India and China have discussed creating an ‘oil buyers’ club’ to be able to negotiate better prices with oil exporting countries and will be looking to import more US crude oil in order to reduce OPEC’s sway, both over the global oil market and over prices, India’s Petroleum Ministry said in June 2018.

“With oil producers' cartel OPEC playing havoc with prices, India discussed with China the possibility of forming an 'oil buyers club' that can negotiate better terms with sellers as well as getting more US crude oil to cut dominance of the oil block,” a tweet from the Petroleum Ministry’s Twitter account said in the middle of last year, when oil prices were rising ahead of the return of the US sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.

According to the officials cited by livemint, China and India have exchanged senior-level visits several times since then and have made progress on “joint sourcing of crude oil.”

Reports of the strengthened Chinese-Indian cooperation in potentially forming an oil buyers’ club come just as the US sanction waivers for all Iranian oil customers expire this week.

China is Iran’s number-one customer, while India is the second-largest buyer of Iranian oil, so the end of the US waivers will mostly affect refiners in those two oil importers who will be scrambling to source crude from other sources or risk secondary US sanctions.

“China and India should do so to grab more bargaining power to make oil prices more sustainable,” Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor Srikanth Kondapalli told the Global Times in a recent interview, commenting on the benefits of an oil buyers’ club.

The technology giant said revenue from the iPhone dropped by 17% to $31bn.

However, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said sales were stronger towards the end of March, including in China where it cut iPhone prices to boost demand.

Apple lifted its outlook for the three months to June, sending its shares over 5% higher in after-hours trading.

The company had warned on iPhones sales earlier this year, citing China where Apple competes with cheaper rivals such as Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi.

Mr Cook told Reuters that an improvement in demand for the iPhone in March as well as for products such as its watch, "give us some confidence that things are getting a bit better".

Apple has lifted its guidance for its third quarter revenue to between $52.5bn and $54.5bn.

For the three months to March, total sales hit $58bn compared to analysts' estimates of $57.3bn.

However, that is below total sales of $61.1bn in the second quarter last year. And while demand improved in China, sales in the region were still down by 20%.

Profits for the second quarter fell to $11.5bn compared to $13.8bn in the same period a year ago.

Apple is attempting to shift its reliance on the iPhone towards services and last month unveiled its new TV streaming platform, Apple TV+, to take on the likes of more established companies such as Netflix.

Services revenue rose to $11.4bn from $9.8bn in the same quarter last year.

But Yoram Wurmser, principal analyst at eMarketer, said long-term growth in services and, to a less extent, other devices "depend on having as many users as possible in the Apple ecosystem, and that's still primarily about the iPhone".

"The long-term growth of the company still depends directly and indirectly on iPhone sales," he added.

At the meeting, Mr. Davaasuren said, “Countries that joined energy partnership within the Belt and Road Initiative are possible to expand their cooperation by implementing big projects and programs. Mongolia aims to complete formulations of feasibility studies of Shivee Energy Export Project and Northeast Asian Super Grid Project and accelerate implementations of the projects.”

“SGCC will be one of main parts in conducting researches and commencing the project implementation within the Northeast Asian Super Grid, initiated by Mongolian President Kh.Battulga; thus we need to cooperate actively,” added the Minister.

For his part, Mr. Xin Bao’an appreciated endeavors of Mongolia and said it would be pleased to cooperate with Mongolia to implement its large project.

In recent years, the cement price has been relatively stable to national producers. Several years ago, Mongolia's southern neighbor China's cement imports were almost stopped. China is exporting a small amount of cement to the eastern provinces. The price of bricks and blocks has also increased slightly. One brick equivalent of MNT 290, increased by 30 MNT compared to the last year. However, the brick factories are already started working while the block factories have not yet begun.

There are several factors that increase prices. According to traders, the exchange rate, changes regularly raises the material price automatically. For example, the CNY rate was MNT 350 last year but increased to MNT 400.

It is also becoming harder to import construction materials due to the investigation of customs control. "Previously, we used to import materials on truck. Now transportation costs have increased, as a result of additional fees," traders said. In addition, local producers emphasized the increase of domestic fuel prices triggered the other products price to rise.