Mongolia's foreign exchange reserves reach new high in December www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's foreign exchange reserves reached 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in December, a new high since December 2016, the Bank of Mongolia, the country's central bank, said Thursday.

December 21, 2017 trading report www.mse.mn

On December 21, 2017, 434,267 shares of 28 firms listed as Tier I, II, and III were traded. 12 firms’ shares increased in price, 11 decreased and 2 firms' share unchanged. Khunnu Management /HBZ/ were the top performers, increasing 15.00 percent each, whereas Mongol Securities JSC /MSC/ was the worst performer, decreasing 14.46 percent.

Coal's resilience today will prove its ultimate downfall: Gadfly www.mining.com

Newcastle, the Australian port that's the biggest export harbor for thermal coal, is planning a shift away from the commodity that generates the overwhelming majority of its trade volumes BHP Billiton Ltd., one of the world's largest coal miners, is considering quitting the industry's global trade body and perhaps the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because it can't reconcile its policies on climate change and energy policy with their more coal-friendly stances National Australia Bank Ltd. promised not to lend to new thermal coal projects and ING Groep NV pledged to reduce its exposure to coal generators to close to zero by 2025 China Merchants Bank Co. joined the lengthening line of lenders disavowing advances for Adani Enterprises Ltd.'s Carmichael project, one of the largest such developments worldwide but one that's highly unlikely to go ahead South Korea, one of the world's biggest coal importers, announced plans to phase out coal by 2079 and sharply cut its use by 2030 The International Energy Agency said that coal demand would remain essentially flat until 2022 — particularly striking given that in recent years it has tended to overestimate coal's prospectsYou'd think from this newsflow that the main benchmark for globally traded coal would be wilting. In fact, it's been on a tear.

Next-month Newcastle thermal coal futures bust through $100 a metric ton last week for the first time in more than a year, after rallying 39 percent since the start of June. For all the doom and gloom about the future of the black stuff — including from this Gadfly — the past two years have been a boom time for coal prices that's only exceeded by their 2010 to 2012 peak.

That's good news in the short term for coal miners like Peabody Energy Corp. and Glencore Plc, which have enjoyed rising profits from digging up soot. In the long term, though, it's another nail in coal's coffin.

Solar module costs since 2011

-80%

When businesses whose costs are rising go into competition with ones whose costs are falling, only a fool would bet on the former group. Yet while Newcastle coal prices are 25 percent below their level at the start of 2011, solar module costs have slumped 80 percent.

In Lazard's latest annual analysis of levelized energy costs — essentially, the prices at which new projects will be able to generate electricity — the highest-cost solar and wind projects are now coming in below or equal to the lowest-cost coal generators.

This is unsurprising. Solar modules and wind turbines are manufactured objects, which over time tend to show marked price declines as refinements to repetitive factory processes and supply chains squeeze expenses out of the system. Productivity gains in the mining and engineering industries that are responsible for digging up coal and building generating plants tend to be much slower. Fossil fuels are in a race they can't win.

That helps explain why banks are becoming increasingly vocal about their unwillingness to lend to coal miners and generators. It's not just altruism. Their bigger concern is that by backing coal technology, they'll be making bad investments, much like their forebears who lent money to the pony-and-trap industry, just as the motor car was taking over. Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg LP, is a senior independent non-executive director at Glencore.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Noble Group gets another credit extension, but future remains uncertain www.reuters.com

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Troubled commodity trader Noble Group on Thursday said it had received an extension on a loan until May next year, giving it crucial time for negotiations over debt restructuring.But the firm, based in Hong Kong and listed in Singapore, said the outcome of the discussions with creditors remained uncertain.

Mongolia considers tax exemption for electricity imports www.news.mn

The Parliamentary Budgetary Standing Committee has backed a project of providing tax exemptions for electricity imports from Russia and China. The Western Energy System Company currently purchases 1kWh electricity from Russia for RUB 2.77, from China for CNY 0.65, and from the Durgun Hydro-Electric Station for MNT 33. The company supplies electricity to households at a cost of 1kWh for MNT 102.3 and makes a loss of MNT 96.7 per 1kWh. The electricity import tax exemption is expected to begin from January, 2018 and last until January, 2021.

2030 development plans for three major cities approved www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Cabinet approved the 2030 General Development Plans for Khovd, provincial center of Khovd aimag, Choibalsan, provincial center of Dornod aimag and Baganuur distrirct of Ulaanbaatar on December 20.

Problems of over centralization www.theubpost.mn

Mongolia is the 19th biggest country in the world, in terms of territory, with over 1.5 million square km of land, which means only 1.76 people live in one square km area on average.

Although the country is sparsely populated in the countryside, it is densely populated in the capital. The gross area of Ulaanbaatar accounts for only 0.3 percent of the national territory, but nearly half of the total population is concentrated in the city. Three hundred people live in one square km area in Ulaanbaatar. As of January this year, the population of Ulaanbaatar was 1.38 million. This is 45.1 percent of the population of Mongolia.

The population in the capital has been increasing year by year due to the increase of birth rate and the steady rise of migration from the countryside to Ulaanbaatar. Mongolian herdsmen are those who keep the traditional nomadic lifestyle with its cultural heritage and it’s an irremovable part of this country. If the migration to the city carries on constantly the number of herdsmen will keep decreasing. Since 1990, 590,000 people migrated from the countryside to the capital, and over 120,000 people moved to rural areas from the city. Accordingly, there will be a need to build new schools and kindergartens despite of the fact that it is still not enough. This over-centralization causes many problems.

First of all, the population growth causes excessive traffic congestion in urban area of Ulaanbaatar and increases the number of ger districts. There are approximately 460,000 vehicles used for more than 10 years and around 202,000 ger area families in Ulaanbaatar, which are the biggest factors of air hazardous level of air pollution.

Air pollution is one of the most serious environmental problems confronting our society today, if not the greatest. In Ulaanbaatar’s case, air pollution is caused by human activities such as coal burning, mining, construction, transportation, and industrial work.

The amount of dust particulate levels in the air are four times higher than the World Health Organization (WHO)’s target for developing countries, and 14 times higher than WHO’s global guidelines. Air pollution has terrible effects on the health of citizens, especially children and pregnant mothers.

According to a research by Kirk R. Smith, an expert on the health and climate effects of household energy use in developing nations and was recognized by the joint award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, air pollution has direct impact on delivery complications, miscarriage, maternal mortality, intracranial pressure andchronic diseases of lung and heart.

“Children who are born in air polluted cities have slower brain processing speeds and irretentive memory,” Smith says. Infant mortality rate in Mongolia was 486 in 2012 and has increased constantly and reached 611 in 2016.

There also other risks that many to over centralization such as vulnerability to natural disasters such as wildfires, and less commonly, earthquakes. Mongolia has experienced four major earthquakes (Ms>8) and many more moderate earthquakes (Ms 5.3-7.5) in this century. According to the information given by D.Saruul , Hiroshi Kawase and Narenmandula Ho at the 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Vancouver, Canada, the extremely thin population distribution of Mongolia has contributed to a low impact from the seismic activities of the past. However, because of its shared importance as the political, economic, and population center of the nation, Ulaanbaatar could face a considerable earthquake risk. Ulaanbaatar is the junction point of all the country’s major roads, railway and air service. As the city is situated on the fluvial sediments of the Tuul River, it is susceptible to risks from earthquakes. The majority of existing pre-80`s housing structures are reasonably well built. However, because of the lack of maintenance and the ongoing alterations in their structures, these buildings could pose a serious threat to public safety in the event of an earthquake.

Another factor influencing over centralization is that Ulaanbaatar is the economic and educational hub of the national.

Some 64.3 percent of the total population of the capital city is under 35 years of age, which is directly linked to the number of higher learning institutes. Currently, Mongolia has 95 universities and colleges nationwide (17 state universities and 74 private universities). Some 143,684 students out of the total 157,138 are living in Ulaanbaatar due to 87 universities in the capital city. If most of the bigger universities move to rural areas with their campuses, Ulaanbaatar could potentially have its clear blue sky back and experience less traffic jams. Furthermore, this centralization of institutes contributes to the development of infrastructure and workplaces in the countryside.

In order to eliminate most of the problems related to over centralization, it is vital for the government to work together with citizens. If the government supports projects to develop rural settlements instead of spending on unsuccessful projects to decrease the air pollution, more and more people might realize there are better living opportunities available than that offered by the capital.

Moreover, every province and soum should formulate a plan to attract young and educated people through good job opportunities and clean living environment. This way, Ulaanbaatar’s problems related to over centralization can be gradually and sustainably resolved, bringing back the “eternal blue sky” Mongolia was so famous for.

Mongolia to revise tax legislation www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Cabinet resolved that Mongolia should join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes and the Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS).

Boosting Mongolia’s smallest firms with US$ 40 million loan www.ebrd.com

The EBRD is providing a US$ 40 million syndicated loan to Mongolia’s XacBank for financing private micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) around the country. The operation will enable XacBank to continue to provide much-needed funding to MSMEs.

Bitcoin crashes 15% as cryptocurrency investors pour money into bitcoin cash www.rt.com

The bitcoin sell-off continued on Wednesday after the leading platform for buying and selling the cryptocurrency, Coinbase, announced it was rolling out support for rival bitcoin cash.

“Sends and receives are available immediately. Buys and sells will be available to all customers once there is sufficient liquidity on GDAX. We anticipate that this will take a few hours,” the exchange announced in a blog post on Tuesday.