Parliament Chairman Begins Luxembourg Visit www.montsame.mn

Byambatsogt Sandag, Chairman of the Parliament of Mongolia, commenced his official visit to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on August 27.

Claude Wiseler, President of the Chamber of Deputies of Luxembourg, welcomed Chairman Byambatsogt. Following a tête-à-tête meeting and the signing of the "Golden Book" by Speaker Byambatsogt, the official bilateral meeting commenced.

At the outset of the meeting, President Claude Wiseler expressed his pleasure at meeting the head of the parliament of Mongolia, a country that shares democratic values. He stated that this visit by the representative of the citizens is a testament to the actively developing relations and cooperation between the peoples of the two countries. Highlighting ongoing efforts to ease visa requirements, he noted that negotiations are underway for an agreement to facilitate or exempt visa requirements for certain passport holders. He expressed confidence that this would be a crucial step in fostering citizen-to-citizen ties. Furthermore, he commended the successful implementation of health sector projects under the bilateral development cooperation.

President Claude Wiseler extended his deep gratitude to Mongolia for successfully hosting the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and for demonstrating global leadership in combating desertification. He expressed confidence that the trust and friendship built over the years will serve as a solid foundation for future collaboration.

China Baoli Advances Mongolia DGDB Projects and Explores African Iron Ore www.theglobeandmail.com

China Baoli Technologies Holdings is advancing its dry grinding and dry beneficiation operations through iron ore and coal projects in Mongolia, reinforcing its position in mineral processing and sustainable mining technologies. The company seeks to leverage favorable market conditions and broaden its resource footprint while building downstream sales channels for future output.

The Mongolia iron ore project has entered the construction phase after completion of consultancy work, equipment procurement, and deployment of technical teams, with initial processed ore expected shortly. The Mongolian coal project has established core infrastructure and begun recruitment and equipment sourcing, but still requires additional capital and resources before full-scale production can start.

To strengthen commercialization, the group is in talks with established suppliers and distributors on off-take and long-term sales partnerships for processed ore, and some potential partners have begun due diligence. In tandem, China Baoli is evaluating iron ore opportunities in Africa to diversify its resource base and reduce reliance on a single jurisdiction.

The board views the DGDB segment as a major growth platform aligned with global trends in environmentally responsible mining. Continued monitoring and staged development of these projects aim to enhance the group’s operational scale and market access, with implications for shareholders as production capacity and customer networks expand.

Country ranked among top performers www.ubpost.mn

Mongolia has ranked among the leading countries in several categories in the Global Tourism Report for the first half of 2026, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth. The report ranked Mongolia fourth among the best-performing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, with a 39 percent growth rate.

Mongolia also ranked second among the markets with the strongest growth in tourism spending, recording a 29 percent increase. In terms of tourism revenue, the country ranked third with a 27 percent increase. Meanwhile, Mongolia placed fourth among the world’s 20 highest-performing countries, posting 39 percent growth.

The rankings highlight Mongolia’s strong performance in tourism during the first half of the year and reflect continued growth in both tourism spending and revenue.

EU Urges 'Constructive' Approach as COP17 Talks Enter Final Phase www.montsame.mn

The European Union and its member states at COP17 have called for a constructive final week of negotiations, expressing concern that some parties have prevented discussions on key agenda items from beginning and urging all delegations to keep the focus on turning commitments into action.

In a joint statement issued with Montenegro as the talks moved toward their decisive phase, the EU said it was determined to work with all parties and partners to secure "practical, ambitious, and implementable outcomes" on land degradation, drought resilience, and sustainable land management. It described COP17 as an important opportunity to translate those commitments into action, while acknowledging that negotiations at the multilateral level are complex.

The bloc voiced concern over the conduct of the opening days. Backing multilateralism as an essential tool for problems that cannot be solved at the national level, it said it was troubling that some parties had adopted "a less constructive approach" and blocked discussion of important matters before it could begin. The EU encouraged all delegations to allow a full discussion of every listed item so that COP17 could find solutions collaboratively.

Setting out its priorities for the remaining days, the EU said its central objective was to preserve the core priorities of the Convention and ensure they are reflected across its outcomes and implementation mechanisms. It highlighted several areas it considers essential.

On cooperation between the three Rio Conventions, the EU said land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change are interconnected and should be tackled in mutually reinforcing ways, welcoming a dedicated COP17 dialogue on delivering synergies as a chance to move from political recognition toward concrete action.

On gender, it welcomed the continued work of the Gender Caucus and the attention given to women pastoralists and herders, calling gender equality an integral part of efforts to strengthen land restoration, drought resilience, and food security.

On science, the EU said the Convention's science-policy interface has served the global community well since 2013 and should continue its work into the next two-year period, describing it as a "connector and a translator" between research and policy.

The EU also stressed the meaningful participation of civil society, Indigenous peoples, and local communities, calling their knowledge and stewardship essential to successful land restoration. It thanked the CSO Panel for giving pastoralists and local communities the opportunity to be heard during the conference.

The statement further welcomed work on the Convention's future strategic framework for the period after 2030, urging that it continue with "momentum and urgency." On finances, the EU said that despite budgetary pressure and the fiscal constraints facing parties, it was their duty to provide the Secretariat with a budget sufficient to carry out its mandated tasks effectively.

The EU said COP17 should be judged by whether it enables effective action, and that a successful conference would deliver stronger implementation, cooperation, and participation without any loss of ambition. Citing a speaker at the opening of the high-level segment on August 24 who told the plenary that "no one can stand alone and no one can be an exception," the bloc said it would continue to work with the Mongolian Presidency, the Secretariat, and all parties to find solutions that are "both ambitious and politically achievable."

2026 Harvest Expected to Fully Meet Wheat and Potato Demand www.montsame.mn

 Iderbat Tsagaankhuu, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, provided an update on the preliminary 2026 harvest balance and preparations for the upcoming harvest.

A total of 580,400 hectares were planted this year, including 317,900 hectares of wheat, 12,800 hectares of potatoes, 13,400 hectares of vegetables, 94,100 hectares of fodder crops, and 90,400 hectares of oilseeds.

Under the “Atar IV Sustainable Agricultural Development Campaign,” the Government decided to provide concessional loans financed by commercial banks, with interest subsidies covered by the Government, to ensure that agricultural operations are carried out within the required seasonal timeframe. Financing agreements were signed with seven commercial banks.

As a result, commercial banks provided MNT 138.9 billion in working capital loans to 906 individuals and business entities, as well as MNT 8.3 billion in concessional investment loans to 45 individuals and business entities. The financing has enabled farmers to upgrade machinery and technology, carry out spring planting, fallow land preparation and crop protection activities within the required timeframe, and make preparations for the harvest.

According to the preliminary harvest balance, Mongolia expects to harvest 555,300 tons of grain, including 497,100 tons of wheat; 168,200 tons of potatoes; 218,400 tons of vegetables; 50,400 tons of oilseeds; and 201,800 tons of fodder crops.

The projected harvest is expected to meet 100 percent of domestic demand for food-grade wheat and potatoes, while domestic production is expected to cover 67.7 percent of demand for vegetables.

Prime Minister N.Uchral meets Loro Piana CEO Frédéric Arnault www.gogo.mn

Prime Minister N. Uchral met with Frédéric Arnault, CEO of Italian luxury company Loro Piana, during the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) in Ulaanbaatar.

Loro Piana is globally renowned for its luxury clothing and products made from cashmere and other premium natural fibers. The company has operated in Mongolia for approximately 40 years, contributing to the development of sustainable production practices and origin certification and becoming an important partner in the export of Mongolian cashmere.

Prime Minister N.Uchral said, “Mongolia is an agricultural country, and wool and cashmere are among our major export products. The Government is pursuing a policy of increasing the production and export of high-value-added products, including yarn, woven and knitted fabrics, and finished goods, rather than relying primarily on the export of raw materials and semi-processed products.

I would like to express my gratitude to Loro Piana for using recycled water in its operations in Mongolia, training engineers in this field, providing training to herders on soil conservation, and conducting research on pastureland, soil, and plants. Through our cooperation, we expect the value of Mongolian cashmere and the country's cashmere exports to increase.”

Frédéric Arnault said that Loro Piana's founders first came to Mongolia in the 1980s and began working directly with herder households with the aim of sourcing the highest-quality cashmere without intermediaries. The company has continued to invest in Mongolia and work with herders for decades.

During the meeting, it was emphasized that Loro Piana prioritizes quality over volume and supports herders through practical initiatives related to health, livelihoods, and development, as well as efforts to reduce pasture and soil degradation.

Loro Piana launched the “Resilient Threads” program last year to support the livelihoods of herders in five soums of Sukhbaatar province while protecting steppe ecosystems and biodiversity.

The company said it plans to expand the program and extend its activities to additional regions of Mongolia in the coming years.

Foreign Minister B.Battsetseg meets Iran’s Minister of Agriculture Jihad Gholamreza Nouri www.gogo.mn

On August 26, Minister of Foreign Affairs B.Battsetseg met with Gholamreza Nouri, Minister of Agriculture Jihad of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who is participating in the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) in Mongolia.

Minister B.Battsetseg expressed appreciation for Iran’s high-level participation in COP17 and noted that the country is making a valuable contribution to the discussions on addressing climate change, desertification, and land degradation.

The two sides also exchanged views on the friendly relations and cooperation between Mongolia and Iran.

They emphasized the importance of sharing experiences and best practices to reduce the impacts of climate change, desertification, land degradation, and natural disasters, and discussed opportunities to further strengthen cooperation in these areas.

Asia-Pacific Community: Chinese-built wastewater plant revives Mongolian capital's green lifeline www.xinhuanet.com

Ulan Bator's Tuul River, long choked by untreated sewage and plagued by acrid odors, has seen a remarkable environmental turnaround thanks to a landmark Chinese-Mongolian wastewater treatment facility, with local staff like Urnaa devoting years to preparing for its full handover to local operators.

Urnaa works as the chief translator at the Ulan Bator central sewage treatment plant, the nation's largest and most advanced sewage plant that began construction in early 2019 and was inaugurated on June 15 this year.

Every working day, she shuttles across the sprawling facility's workshops, providing real-time interpretation for Mongolian technical teams and compiling operation and maintenance manuals to smooth the handover process to the local team. Over the past year, she has watched how the plant, built entirely to Chinese standards and using Chinese technology by China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group Co., Ltd., has evolved from early construction to full operation.
Standing on the rooftop on the fourth floor of the plant's comprehensive service building, eight massive secondary sedimentation tanks stretch outward like polished mirrors, their clear treated water reflecting Mongolia's boundless blue skies and white clouds.

Covering a total area of 178,000 square meters with 55 standalone buildings, the plant boasts a daily treatment capacity of 250,000 cubic meters. It can process nearly all residential and industrial wastewater produced in Ulan Bator, serving roughly half of Mongolia's entire population.

Two side-by-side display boards in the facility's lobby lay bare the capital's decades-long sewage crisis, drawing a stark contrast between this modern, recycling-focused new plant and its outdated predecessor.

Constructed back in the 1960s and expanded three times over the years, the aging plant only handled 160,000 to 170,000 cubic meters of wastewater each day. As the capital's population exploded, sewage output surged, triggering equipment malfunctions.

For years, vast volumes of inadequately treated wastewater were discharged directly into the Tuul, Ulan Bator's mother river -- a foul reality Urnaa remembers all too clearly from her early career. Ten years ago, while working on a Mongolian disabled children's rehabilitation project run by the same Chinese contractor, the stench from the polluted river lingered constantly around the work compound. Today, stable operation of the new treatment plant has delivered visible improvements to surrounding air quality and the river's water clarity.

Lyu Haiyun, project manager from China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group Co., Ltd, noted that the plant's value stretches far beyond simply producing clean discharged water, as it delivers a complete low-carbon circular development concept tailored for Mongolia. Its integrated design unifies wastewater treatment, clean energy production and resource recycling.

Design teams took full account of Mongolia's sludge, which contains high organic matter, installing four large medium-temperature anaerobic reactors on-site to ferment sludge into biogas for power and heating. Once fully operational, the biogas system will meet 25 to 30 percent of the plant's electricity and heating demands, slashing long-term operating expenses.

Beyond filling Mongolia's critical domestic sewage treatment technology gap, the project prioritizes cultivating independent local operational capacity through systematic training. Starting in 2023, around 70 Mongolian operation and maintenance technicians have traveled to China for specialized training courses. In July, Urnaa accompanied local regulatory officials to Beijing to attend training sessions on biogas power generation.

"Many Mongolian engineers have learned so much through this project," Urnaa said. "For me personally, all the training and on-site practice have given me full confidence to work for similar infrastructure projects in the future."

TMK Energy secures driller for fresh Mongolian gas pilot well www.theage.com.au

TMK Energy has locked in contractor Major Drilling to kick off a new work program at its Gurvantes XXXV coal seam gas project in Mongolia, as it looks to chase a major lift in gas flows and demonstrate the commercial chops of its independently certified 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas contingent resource.

Notably, the resource figure is derived from just 60 square kilometres of the project’s sprawling 8400-square-kilometre tenure, suggesting the true potential remains uncharted. The company has flagged a prospective resource of 5.3 trillion cubic feet across the broader Mongolian South Gobi basin.

The company has committed to drilling at least one new pilot production well, LF-08, and will also re-complete three of its seven existing wells in a bid to ramp up gas flows. TMK’s new well is targeting an up-dip location that management believes could make it an early gas producer.

It will be drilled with an optimised wellbore design intended to build on the success of the project’s best-performing well to date, LF-07, the only well delivered under a revised reservoir management plan last year. Final preparations for the new well are underway, with drilling operations expected to kick off in late September.

‘The month-on-month increase in gas production is clear evidence that the coals in our pilot are capable of sustained gas production.’
TMK Energy chief executive officer Dougal Ferguson
In parallel, the company is pushing ahead with the re-completion of three existing production wells – LF-02, LF-03 and LF-06, with work scheduled to start next month. Most of the long-lead items for the re-completions have been manufactured and are now being shipped from China to Mongolia, following the purchase order, with the equipment expected on-site in the coming weeks.

The initial plan had contemplated drilling up to three new wells; however, the company has refined its strategy to focus first on increasing gas production from its existing assets, while retaining the flexibility to drill additional wells under its contract with Major Drilling.

The company says the combination of drilling LF-08 and re-completing three existing wells is expected to meet its 2026 work program commitments for the Gurvantes XXXV licence.

TMK Energy chief executive officer Dougal Ferguson said: “The month-on-month increase in gas production that we report is clear evidence that the coals in our pilot are capable of sustained gas production and that the pressure in the reservoir continues to decline. These key facts, together with continued good water production rates are the key ingredients of a successful coal seam gas project.”

The company’s latest operations update shows average gas production during July climbed 5 per cent from the previous month to about 27,500 standard cubic feet per day (scfd). The upward trend has continued into August, with daily production now averaging more than 28,250scfd and edging closer to the company’s next operational milestone of producing more than 30,000scfd.

Alongside rising production, TMK and its local partner, Dashvaanjil Group, have completed engineering and design work for the company’s gas-to-power project. Subject to commercial agreements being finalised and a planned October final investment decision, the project is expected to be operational by December. It would provide the company with an early pathway to cashflow by converting its own gas into electricity for remote mining operations that currently rely on diesel or third-party power.

The Gurvantes XXXV project is strategically located in Mongolia’s South Gobi Desert, less than 20km from the Chinese border and close to existing gas infrastructure in northern China. For an aspiring gas producer, having the world’s largest energy market just a stone’s throw away is a serious commercial advantage.

With a drilling contractor now locked in and equipment heading to site, TMK appears to be rounding the corner on its pilot program. The focus is now on execution, with the rods set to start turning next month as the company works to prove it can deliver commercial quantities of gas from its giant Mongolian resource.

Chinese tech aids Mongolia's green, industry goals www.chinadaily.com.cn

China-backed green technologies and ecological projects are helping Mongolia balance economic growth and land restoration as desertification affects more than 70 percent of its territory, with the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) being held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital city, from Aug 17 to Friday.

Mongolia's economy relies heavily on mining and livestock farming, creating an urgent need to protect fragile grasslands while developing key industries. Chinese enterprises are providing effective green solutions to support Mongolia's national One Billion Trees initiative.

China-Mongolia ecological cooperation has been expanded. The China-Mongolia Desertification Prevention and Control Cooperation Center was inaugurated in Ulaanbaatar in September 2023 to support Mongolia's green drive.

At the Ulan Mine operated by China Railway Resources Group's Xinxin Company, advanced green systems have been put into full use. A closed-loop tailings water recycling system enables nearly all production water to be reused, greatly saving water resources and reducing environmental risks. The mine also boasts Mongolia's first back-filling mining system, which refills underground cavities to prevent surface subsidence and protect vegetation.

The company has protected more than 10 springs near the mine and carried out large-scale revegetation. By 2025, it had planted over 12,000 trees and restored dozens of hectares of land. It provides more than 1,100 stable jobs, with over 90 percent of employees being Mongolian nationals, and has established partnerships with more than 30 local businesses.

Local herder Gankhimig said her two children used to make a living from tending livestock, but saw a clear income increase after they started working at the mine. The family has also taken part in tree-planting activities organized by the mine.

In the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia, China's M-Grass Ecology and Environment Group is providing technical support for a 400-hectare saxaul forest project, another important part of the One Billion Trees project. The region has extremely harsh natural conditions, with vegetation cover below 10 percent, annual precipitation of only about 104 millimeters and extreme temperatures ranging from — 31.5 C to 42.2 C.

Wang Junfang, technical team leader of the project, said the survival of saxaul seedlings depends on careful planning and detailed work. To reduce damage to the desert surface and native plants, the team reduced the diameter of planting pits from 40 centimeters to 20 cm.

The project planned to plant 330,000 saxaul seedlings. Field surveys started in May 2025, and 80 hectares were planted last autumn. Another 200 hectares will be completed this autumn using the "mechanical digging plus manual planting" method. A 10-hectare research zone has been established to test over 20 Mongolian native plant species and adapt China's desert-control technologies to local conditions.

The project used a water-saving irrigation plan that mainly depends on natural rainfall. Two years after the saxaul trees mature, the team planned to test grafting cistanche, a medicinal plant, and carry out carbon sequestration monitoring, combining ecological restoration with local economic benefits.

M-Grass is also cooperating with a Mongolian partner on mine restoration and an 8-hectare mine-slope restoration pilot project.

Oyunsanaa Byambasuren, director-general of Mongolia's Forestry Administration, spoke highly of China's rich experience in desertification control, which has been widely recognized worldwide. He said the "China Corner", a themed exhibition in the Blue Zone at COP17, provided valuable experience for Mongolia and other countries, and bilateral cooperation has broad prospects.

Fan Lijun, director of the Belt and Road Initiative Research Institute at the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences, said the cooperation that combines China's technologies with local conditions achieves both ecological protection and industrial development, serving as a new highlight of practical cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor.