The new office, which will expand to 80 staff this year, will support the company’s exploration program and local services units, as well as focus on growing relationships, the miner said in a statement on Monday.

“Today we are demonstrating the deepening of our commitment to Mongolia through the establishment of a new country office under new Mongolian leadership,” Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques said.

“Mongolia is one of Rio Tinto’s most strategically important markets and we are here to stay.”

Rio Tinto operates the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, which is jointly owned by the government of Mongolia, with 34 percent, and Turquoise Hill Resources with 66 percent. Turquoise Hill is in turn 51 percent-owned by Rio Tinto.

The company had invested more than $7 billion in Mongolia since 2010, including salaries, supplier payments, investment in the community, and $1.5 billion in taxes, royalties and other payments to the government, Jacques said.

Earlier this month Oyu Tolgoi said it was evaluating a bill for about $155 million from Mongolia’s tax authority following an audit of payments made between 2013 and 2015.

Munkhtushig Dul has been appointed as Rio Tinto’s country director and will lead the new Rio Tinto office. He will work in coordination with the Oyu Tolgoi LLC team, led by managing director Armando Torres.

Dul has previously worked in senior roles within the Noble Group’s Mongolian operations, as well as the Mongolian Stock Exchange and the Executive Office of the National Security Council.

The export increased by USD 1.3 billion or 26.1 per cent whereas import went up by USD 977.3 million or 29.1% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Foreign trade balance surplus reached USD 1.9 billion, showing an increase of USD 307 million or 19.7 percent against 2016.

USD 1.3 billion increase in export was influenced by mineral products' export which raised by USD 1.4 billion in 2017, of which coal export up by USD 1.3 billion.
E.Altanzul

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Mongolian immigration officers last week raided the giant copper-gold mine on suspicions workers at the project, which is a joint venture between Rio and the local government, did not have the correct visas.

About 40 workers, including Australians, Americans and Canadians, had their passports confiscated last Friday and were unable to return home on flights scheduled for Monday.

Since then, most of the workers were found to be working illegally and have been told to get out of the country.

The stoush in one of the most inhospitable places on earth was part of a wider crackdown by Mongolia on ex-pats working in the country.

Rio said the affected workers were employed by contractors, not directly by the mining giant.

“We are aware immigration officials in Mongolia have conducted visa checks at a number of businesses,” a company spokesman said.

“The responsibility for ensuring the correct visa has been applied for and issued sits with the contracting company. If found to hold an incorrect visa they may be asked to pay fines and leave the country in a matter of days, consistent with immigration law in many countries, including Australia.

“We are working closely with the contracting companies, the contractors, who remain on site, and the Mongolian immigration department as they work to complete their review. The department has been working through this in a timely manner. We expect it to be resolved quickly.”

Hofmann Engineering managing director Erich Hofmann would not comment on the situation other than to say the company was working to ensure its staff could get home as soon as possible.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said Canberra was “aware of the situation and is making inquiries with the relevant Mongolian authorities”.

Oyu Tolgoi is one of the most remote mine sites in the world. The sprawling project is 550km south of Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar and 80km north of the China border.

Regarding this decision, State Bank's Board of Directors convened last Friday and decided to cut vacancies of directors by 50 percent.

The State bank had a total of 70 directors. Following the Board decision, the number of directors has been reduced to 40, with a total of 30 directors dismissed.

Reports alleged that Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite signed a bill to impose sanctions against Mongolia on Monday.

This information was also denied by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, which emphasized that Lithuania and Mongolia are developing constructive bilateral relations and actively cooperating in multilateral formats, as well as gradually expanding economic cooperation.

This is not the first time that such anti-Lithuanian and third-party aggressive informational actions are aimed at compromising Lithuania in the international space, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on Dec. 11, 1991.

Delivering better outcomes in health and education, particularly for the most vulnerable citizens, is a perennial concern, both in the capital Ulaanbaatar, which accounts for nearly 40% of Mongolia’s population, and the aimags (provinces) beyond.

The problem is particularly severe in the ger areas (where people live in yurts), once considered to be temporary settlements but now home to an increasing population.

We hope to improve public services by giving citizens a great say in the decision-making processes. This is why the Government of Mongolia, civil society partners, the Open Government Partnership and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation have launched a plan to target support for poor and vulnerable sub-segments of Mongolian society.

The Plan

We have two main objectives. First is to build the capacity of civil society and citizens to help them engage. Second is to support the installation of permanent mechanisms that sustain this initiative – from the publication of data to mechanisms that include citizen feedback in policymaking.

We have selected ten villages across Mongolia to try things out. One village conducted an audit of key processes in education and healthcare. They found that the healthcare procurement system was inefficient, and advised on a new bidding process. For example, pharmaceutical procurement now requires a group of independent experts to sign off large purchases, ensuring less room for corruption and saving 10% of the estimated budget already.

We have also improved feedback management across the country. For example, the Ministry of Health discovered low moral and mistreatment of medical staff, and so villages were encouraged to adopt action plans to improve this.

Helping the vulnerable

New village feedback mechanisms have helped to spot gaps in the system. For example, we discovered that 7,000 temporary residents in Khuvsgul were not receiving basic healthcare, and once included in the system, enabled us to fight tuberculosis. Satisfaction in healthcare increased by 28% in just three months!

These are just a few small examples of how together governments, civil society, and citizens can produce better and more equitable development outcomes when they work together.

Hopefully as the results and the lessons from these micro-projects are consolidated, policy changes at local and national levels will ensure that joint-problem becomes the norm – rather than the exception.

More information on the project can be found here: http://www.irgen-tur.mn/en/what-is-masam

This article was published in partnership with the Open Government Partnership.

The Xiongnu people were an alliance of nomadic tribes also known as the Huns that emerged around the end of the third century B.C. and had a huge impact on Chinese and world history. During the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu and China clashed several times.

Launched in July 2017, the collaborative team has been cooperating on surveys, mapping, excavation and research on a Xiongnu cemetery in Arkhangai Province in Mongolia. The site has more than 400 known tombs.

Before New Year, Xing Haiming, Chinese Ambassador to Mongolia expressed Beijing's intention of cooperating with the Mongolian railway project to connect Tavan Tolgoi mine to the Gashuun Sukhait border crossings.

Located in the South Gobi desert, Tavan Tolgoi is home to the world’s largest high-quality coking coal deposit used in steelmaking, with reserves estimated in 7.5 billion tonnes. Mongolia is one of biggest coal suppliers to China.