As a result, Mongolia’s coal export to China dropped 8.9 percent to 3.68 million tons. Mongolia exported a total of 15 million tons of coal earning USD 1.2 billion in the first five months of 2019, which is only equal to 35 percent of 2019 export target of 42 million tons.

Australia’s coal export also slumped by 5.5 percent to 5.25 million tons, due to the relationship between the two countries. Australian coal exports have faced border crossing bans, after the country refused to use Huawei’s 5G service. Coking coal accounted for 26 percent or 1.38 million tons, which is the poorest performance since February 2019.

In the meantime, the coal export of Russia to China, the world's sixth largest coal producer ranked after China, the United States, India, Australia, and Indonesia, rose 64 percent to 3.93 million tons. 15 percent of it or 596,000 tons were coking coal. Indonesia also saw 46 percent of growth in its export selling 13.2 million tons of coal.

According to the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry (MMHI), the export of Gashuunsukhait port is in the range of previous years and coal export from Shiveekhuren port reached 50 percent of the estimated amount. As a result, Mongolia’s coal export remained 20-30 percent behind plan. In the second quarter of last year, the country lost its opportunity to export two million tons of coal, due to the C lisence at ports between China and Mongolia.

Experts predict China’s demand to stay at last year’s level. The second biggest economy of the world’s coal imports declined in the second half of the last two years, signalling concerns that Mongolia may fall short of its ambitious goal.