Government to present Mid-term Investment Program at Economic Forum www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ ‘Mongolia Economic Forum’ with purposes to define sustainable development policy of Mongolian economy and to seek opportunities to tackle pressing issues of the main sectors will be held on May 21-22 in the State House.

Potential mining of lithium and rare earth elements at Mongolian coal mine www.news.mn

Rare earth elements including a lithium reserve have been discovered in the Khuut coal mine, located in the Matad District of Dornod Province in eastern Mongolia. Tsogtjargal Dondovdorj, CEO of Buman-Olz LLC noted that the company has recently discovered rare earth elements including lithium in its mining site and expressed an interest to intensify exploration.

Public demands continuation of mortgage program www.ubinfo.mn

Ger District Movement organized a demonstration in tents at Sukhbaatar Square, demanding the continuation of city replanning of ger district area, which were conducted during the previous government and granting mortgage loan, which is currently frozen.

Previously, the Government of Mongolia backed the ger district replanning projects. Within the framework, lands of ger district households was changed for an apartments.

According to Head of Ger District Movement, all activities of companies involved in ger district replanning projects have stopped completely and the remaining fund of MNT 40 billion which was dedicated for the project shifted from its primary purpose. This caused many households to lose their lands and houses.

“A few years ago, my family released our land and made a contract with a construction company, which promised an accommodation in exchange for our land,” Sumiyajav Shashnaa, a citizen of the 5th khoroo of Songinokhairkhan district, said with anger.

Ger District households organize public demonstration over mortgage program

“Today, we have nowhere to live because the work has been stopped for unspecified time,“ she added. My family is big and I am a retired person,” Mrs Sumiajav said. Today, there are 220 thousand households or over one million citizen living in ger district in Ulaanbaatar.

In 2016 and 2017, MNT 876.6 billion and MNT 670.6 billion were granted as mortgage loan to commercial banks respectively. But in 2018, the amount is drastically reduced. According to the information issued by the Bank of Mongolia, as of the first quarter, MNT 48.1 billion was granted for the mortgage loan financing and yesterday, MNT 45 billion was granted for this purpose.

As of December end of 2017, accommodations for 1535 households, which is 21 percent increase compared to 2016, were ready for sale, Tenkhleg Zuuch, a real estate agency, reported. The average price per square meter of the houses has reached MNT 2.02 million – increase of MNT 37 thousand compared to the same period of the last year.

The organizing committee of the recent Barilga Expo -2018 event highlighted that construction sector which has been in crisis for three years has now showing a sign of restoration.

At the time of the economic restoration, NCD Group presented its Casa Da Vinci luxury houses project in Artsat village. Each household in the village of MNT 4.5 million per square meter will have plot of land with green area.

But Khatan Ester LL C which implements Bumbyn Ord Project on houses of air pollution reduction, which don’t produce smoke, offers at a comparatively low price. Bumbyn Ord's housing, which is built at distance of 9 km from Ulaanbaatar, costs MNT 1.8 million per square meter.

House construction factory of Erel LLC has a capacity of producing annually 250 thousand square meters of living space. This factory started to receive orders for apartment buildings and houses. However, as it is a large factory, it has a potential to receive orders of 10 and more houses.

According to the data provided by the Tenkhleg Zuuch, over 3600 households live in houses in Ulaanbaatar as of March 2018.

Oyunbayar.N

Over 15 million animals born in Mongolia this spring www.news.mn

Mongolia has welcomed over 15 million newly born animals this spring. This May, it was announced that there has been a 95 percent survival following a very harsh winter and very windy spring.

Electricity costs pose challenges for greenhouse farmers www.gogo.mn

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry reported that greenhouse farmers harvested a total of 5,140 tons of crops in 2017.

Mongolians plant over 70 thousand tree and bushes www.news.mn

Individuals and organisations across Mongolia were mobilised, into an army of trees planters as the 9th National Tree Planting Day was held on Saturday 12 May.

Tavantolgoi coal price rises by 70 cents per ton www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On May 10-11, representatives of ‘Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi’ JSC held a regular meeting with Chalco Trading Hong Kong Co Limited to raise coal price and update the price index.

At the meeting, the sides reached an agreement to raise the coal price, which was unchanged since 2017, to USD60 or by 70 cents per ton.

In addition, Chalco Trading Hong Kong Co Limited pledged to study a request by ETT JSC to increase the price to USD61.35, introducing the request to its Board of Directors and give a response next week.

The sides also agreed to make two kinds of updates in the price adjustment mechanism or price-indexing methodology, within the framework of correcting the mechanism's disadvantages in the agreement established in 2011 with Chalco Trading Hong Kong Co Limited. Specifically, one more indice will be added. By doing so, the price will be calculated in accordance with five indices, which changes the index basket coefficients.  As a result, it decreases CR China Coking Price Index, which was at 60 percent, to 30 percent.

It creates advantages to raise the price in harmony with market growth, bring the price closer to the coal price of West Tsankhi mine within 1 and 1.5 years, and protect from risks that may occur when coal prices fall.
 

Xerox cancels merger with Fujifilm www.nhk.or.jp

A planned merger between 2 leading US and Japanese printer and copier companies has been called off due to shareholder opposition.

Mongolia to increase legal cooperation with Turkey www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia is willing to further expand legal cooperation with Turkey, especially in the field of prosecution, the parliament's press office said Sunday.

Mongolia expects to receive USD 1.4 billion investment www.news.mn

On 11 May, the State Great Khural, as the Mongolian Parliament is known, discussed the 2019 State Budget. According to the finance minister, next year, the country will receive a total of USD 1.4 billion in investment in 2019; nearly one billion is projected for the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine development - the remainder in construction sector.