The $940 million rail project, AutoHaul, is focused on driverless train movement to transport ore to the company's port operations and has been in development since 2012.

"Early results indicate significant potential to improve productivity, providing increased system flexibility and reducing bottlenecks," Ivan Vella, Rio Tinto's iron ore managing director Rail, Port & Core Services, said.

Rio Tinto operates about 200 locomotives on more than 1,700 km of track in Pilbara to transport ore from 16 mines to four port terminals.

In 2017, Rio Tinto's iron ore chief Chris Salisbury had said the company would look to develop an "intelligent" iron ore mine at a cost of $2.2 billion by fully incorporating technologies such as robotics and driverless trains and trucks on a single site.

(Reporting by Sangameswaran S; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Furthermore, the U.S Federal Reserve approach on increasing interest rate in steps is reducing investors’ confidence and raising a risk of investment outflow in developing countries. Due to the decision of U.S Federal Reserve, the 22 foreign exchange rates of Bloomberg FX Fixings have depreciated by up to 50 percent against US Dollars. MNT rate followed the same fate, falling 9 percent against the USD since the beginning of this year.

Regardless, the International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank and other international organizations did not lower their 2019 Economic Outlook on Mongolia. Analysts expect the world economy to grow by 3-4 percent next year.

The trade dispute is creating risks to every countries and the Financial Stability Report of the IMF warned that the stock prices of U.S firms stand above the pre-global crisis period and real estates of developed countries, such as Australia and Canada are currently in “a bubble. Plus, the President of European Central Bank Mario Draghi told the media that a crisis situation has been seen in the global economy”.

Considering the current uncertainties in global economy and debt repayments in the upcoming years, the BoM is now holding a policy to create reserves. Accordingly, the foreign exchange reserve of Mongolia has reached a 6-year record last October.
However, the 2019 budget revenue and expenditure has been planned at a record-high amount. Experts are warning that monetary policy will be in a constraint and create more risks as budget investment will support imports, pressuring balance of payment and MNT rate as a result.

The Bank of Mongolia has improved the platform based on its internal possibilities and started using the developed version of the platform from December 21, 2018.

The developed version of the platform will reduce operational risks, increase information accessibility and contribute to development of internal currency exchange.

According to national statistics, registered unemployed people have been estimated at 25 thousand in 2018; most of them 25-34 years old. However; there are 35 thousand jobs available on the Mongolian labour market. Without doubt, E.Uujimsetgel is an ideal role model for the younger generation.

Currently, the minimum monthly wage is MNT 240 thousand, which came into force in January 2017.

Under the current law, if a foreign citizen undertakes espionage in Mongolia, they will be punished by 12-20 years imprisonment.

A census conducted between Dec. 7-17 showed the number of livestock animals in 2018 increased by 244,700, or 0.4 percent, from the previous year, Erdene-Ochir Myagmarkhand announced at a press conference.

According to the preliminary result of the nationwide census, sheep accounted for 46.0 percent of all livestock, goats accounted for 40.8 percent, cattle accounted for 6.6 percent, horses accounted for 5.9 percent and camels accounted for 0.7 percent.

Among the country's 21 provinces, the northernmost Khuvsgul has the largest number of livestock with 5.7 million, followed by Uvurkhangai and Arkhangai in the central provinces, with about 5.5 million respectively.

There are 230,800 herder households with livestock animals, up 0.8 percent from last year.

The promotion of animal husbandry is seen as the most reachable solution to diversify the landlocked country's mining-dependent economy. Currently, mineral products account for over 90 percent of its total exports.

Organisers estimated nearly 25,000 people turned out for the protest on Thursday.

Local media described the gathering as the second largest after a riot in 2008.

Protesters focused their anger on Mongolia's parliamentary speaker, Enkhbold Miyegombo, and the two main ruling parties, the Mongolian People's Party and the Democratic Party.

There has been rising anger over a long-running corruption case related to allegations that Enkhbold and other political figures had looked to raise 60 billion tugriks ($23m) by selling off government positions.

Enkhbold has denied the allegations.

A cross-party group of politicians who are boycotting the parliament's plenary sessions has signed a letter demanding Enkhbold's resignation.

The group, the Mongolian People's Union, opposes the two main parties, together known by the abbreviation MANAN.

"We will not allow the situation where the MANAN faction gets all the wealth and resources, while people ... remain with nothing," member of parliament Ayursaikhan Tumurbaatar told media.

"The air pollution, people's poverty, wealth inequality all started with Enkhbold since he was the mayor of Ulaanbaatar city," he said.

Mongolia, for years a satellite of the Soviet Union, transitioned to parliamentary democracy in 1990.

At the Thursday protest, people held up placards with messages such as "We Demand Enkhbold Resign."

Protester Dejid Avirmed, 61, told the Reuters news agency that people were fed up that in a mineral-rich, democratic country like Mongolia many still lived in poverty.

"Mongolians are very patient, but now we lose our patience," she told Reuters at the protest in the central square in front of parliament.

"Enkhbold should resign. A shame on him that he makes this many people protest in this mid-winter cold."

Thursday's regular session of parliament was delayed for a seventh time because of the boycott by the members demanding Enkhbold's resignation.

The last scheduled parliament session for 2018 is due on Friday.

"Parliament members should solve the problem not by appealing to protests, but by coming to the parliament session hall. This is the law," said Enkh-Amgalan Luvsantseren, deputy speaker of parliament.

Munkhchimeg Davaasharav

As of the third quarter, foreign debt accounted for about 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to the central bank.

"We have many challenges ahead. In particular, the government is due to pay back 5.4 billion U.S. dollars in total in 2021-2022," said Bayartsaikhan Nadmid, president of the Bank of Mongolia.

"So, we need to pay special attention to increase foreign currency reserves," he said.

Mongolia's foreign currency reserves reached 3.4 billion dollars at the end of the third quarter, a new high since 2013, he added.

The mineral-rich country has a population of 3.2 million and an economy of 12 billion dollars.

The country's economy is heavily dependent on the mining industry that contributes to about a quarter of the country's GDP and around 90 percent of its exports.

The diplomat explained that gas supplies via a pipeline are much cheaper, but such projects can be launched only if a long-term bilateral deal is sealed. On the other hand, LNG is more convenient as the pipeline works only one way, but at the same time the fuel in the liquefied form is more expensive, according to Denisov.

China is world’s fifth largest consumer of natural gas and has long been planning to increase imports from foreign suppliers, including Russia.

Moscow and Beijing are currently finalizing talks on the gas supplies agreement via the so-called ‘Western Route’, which stipulates building the Power of Siberia pipeline to deliver Russian gas from the Far East to China.

The new pipeline will deliver 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for 30 years. The last remaining question the sides are discussing is the price, Denisov said.

“Many issues are agreed, as far as we know, except for the main one, perhaps, the issue of defining the price,” the envoy told journalists.

Russia currently has two LNG plants – Gazprom’s Sakhalin-2 and Novatek’s Yamal LNG. Energy giant Rosneft is also planning to build a new plant in partnership with US’ ExxonMobil, Japan’s SODECO and India’s ONGC Videsh. The $27 billion Yamal LNG project, which began operations last December, has recently reached full capacity and has already shipped two million tons of the liquefied fuel.