The speakers exchanged ideas on further advancing the U.S.-Mongolia commercial relationship and spoke to the meeting’s guests about the current U.S. administration’s messages for Mongolia. The meeting convened senior executives from AmCham member organizations, as well as AmCham Mongolia board members, and included a comprehensive Q & A session on key topics of interest.

Ambassador Galt commented on the joint efforts being made by the U.S. Embassy and AmCham to improve U.S.-Mongolia commercial partnership. During her welcoming remarks she said, “Without a doubt, increasing the U.S. private sector presence and partnerships with Mongolia is the most effective way to deepen our bilateral economic relationship.”

In his keynote address, Deputy Assistant Secretary Alan Turley said, “The Trump administration is committed and engaged to Asia in all spectrums of partnership, and we are looking to directly establish bilateral trade agreements with Asian countries. We believe that Mongolia has great potential in agriculture, herding, and food processing among others, and we have great companies in those sectors that can provide expertise and equipment.”

Chairman of AmCham Mongolia Mr. Jay Liotta delivered the meeting’s opening remarks and stated, “As we see greater and greater engagement from China, Russia, Japan, Korea, the European Union, and others in Mongolia, it is so good to have the U.S. Department of Commerce increasing its role with Mongolia. AmCham looks forward to continue working with you as your local partner to advance commercial ties between the United States and Mongolia.”

About AmCham Mongolia

AmCham Mongolia is an independent membership-driven organization that seeks to build, strengthen, and protect business between the United States and Mongolia, and to actively promote Mongolia as a destination for American investment. AmCham Mongolia is the official local affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business federation in the world with over 3 million member companies. AmCham Mongolia is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce, consisting of 29 American Chambers of Commerce in the Asia-Pacific region.

Erdene Continues to Define New Zone at Bayan Khundii, Receives Positive Metallurgical Results

Erdene Resource Development Corp. ("Erdene") announced additional assay results from their ongoing 2017 drill program at the Bayan Khundii project in southwest Mongolia. A total of 19,386 metres have been drilled in 2017 and during the fourth quarter Erdene will be testing a series of geophysical and geochemical targets within the larger Bayan Khundii prospect area.

Results from drilling completed during the third quarter have continued to define a high-grade zone between the Midfield and Striker Zones. Hole BKD-194 is the latest in a series of holes confirming the continuity between these two high-grade zones. Three holes were also drilled to test potential continuity of gold mineralization west of the Midfield Zone (BKD-183,189 and 190) and a single hole (BKD-198) was drilled 130 metres west of the Striker Zone to test the down-dip potential of previously completed hole BKD-32 which returned a broad zone of low-grade mineralization during 2016 drilling. This hole confirmed higher grades at depth. Drill highlights include:

BKD-188: 120.0 metres of 1.1 g/t gold from 110.0 metres including 3.0 metres of 33.1 g/t gold from 176.0 metres;
BKD-194: 128.0 metres of 1.1 g/t gold from 49.0 metres including 22.0 metres of 3.3 g/t gold from 115.0 metres;
BKD-196: 22.0 metres of 2.4 g/t gold from 112.0 metres including 1.0 metre of 43.1 g/t gold from 118.0 metres;
BKD 197: 6.0 metres of 2.7 g/t gold from 130.0 metres;
BKD-198: 25.0 metres of 1.4 g/t gold from 144.0 metres including 3.0 metres of 7.8 g/t gold from 145.0 metres; and
BKD-30ext: 58.0 metres of 1.2 g/t gold from 59.0 metres including 16.0 metres of 2.8 g/t gold from 87.0 metres.
The results from Phase I metallurgical testing at Bayan Khundii has come back positive with two master composites indicating that gold from the project is free milling and amenable to conventional processing techniques.

Sandstorm has a 2.0% NSR royalty on Erdene's Bayan Khundii and Altan Narprojects.

Reported intervals are not true width. For more information and for complete drill results visit Erdene's website at www.erdene.com and see the press releases dated September 14, 2017 and September 12, 2017.

The company is seeking to shore up its reputation after a series of scandals and to move beyond a battle between Kalanick and Uber investors spearheaded by Silicon Valley’s Benchmark Capital.

The company in a statement said the board had agreed to move forward with the SoftBank (9984.T) deal in coming weeks and governance changes at Uber “that would strengthen its independence and ensure equality among all shareholders.”

One person familiar with the matter said that a group of investors including SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic would be allowed to buy $1 billion to $1.25 billion of new Uber shares at a company valuation of $69 billion and 14 to 17 percent of stock from current investors at a discounted valuation.

The person and a second source said governance changes include expanding the size of the board to 17 directors from 11. The board would include three independent directors, an independent chairperson and two seats controlled by SoftBank once its investment closes.

Shareholders will now have one vote per share, ending a class of supervoting shares in a move that substantially decreases the power of Kalanick and some other early investors.

On the secondary market for government securities, 19,522 bonds worth MNT 1,790,860,322 were traded.

The MSE ALL Index rose 0.11 percent to stand at 1070.48. The MSE market cap stands at MNT 2,085,774,463,293.

As we reported last week, meat and dairy products from some of the 30 Mongolian companies participating in Expo 2017 were held by Chinese border inspectors for the duration of the event. According to P.Sergelen, Mongolia's Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industries, the goods have been destroyed in the Chinese border city of Erenhot (Erin); as a result, Mongolian companies have suffered a USD 78 thousand loss.

More than 1600 businessmen and 390 enterprises from Mongolia participated in the Expo 2017. One of the real success stores was the TESO Company, which signed an agreement with China to export sea buckthorn seed-oil worth of MNT 3 billion.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report on Monday highlighting China's oil field development in the region.

The report says satellite images show China has placed 3 new rigs in waters on the Chinese side of a median line between the 2 countries.

It also detected an increase in activity by Chinese vessels in waters near the new rigs between July and September this year.

The latest CSIS discovery brings the total number of Chinese structures in regional waters to 19.

The 2 nations reached an agreement in 2008 to jointly develop oil fields in the region. But Japanese officials say that while negotiations for a treaty have since stalled, China has continued with its maritime developments.

In August, the Japanese government lodged a protest with China after a Chinese drilling ship was engaged in some kind of activity in the area. It demanded China stop its unilateral development.

China's foreign ministry said that the work was being carried out in undisputed waters under Chinese jurisdiction.

The milestone trip, spanning nearly 100 km (60 miles) with trains operated by individuals in an air-conditioned control room hundreds of kilometres away, puts Rio Tinto on track for commissioning the so-called AutoHaul project in late-2018, the miner said.

The company, one of the first to ever embrace driverless mining vehicles, already runs about 200 locomotives on more than 1,700 km of track, hauling ore from 16 mines to four port terminals.

Rio’s trains began running in autonomous mode in the first quarter of this year and about 50% of its pooled fleet rail kilometres are being completed in autonomous mode, but with drivers on-board.

The company said that 90% of its pooled fleet production tonnes are AutoHaul enhanced, which means they are able to operate continuously without shift changes and improved safety, with trains responding automatically to speed limits and alarms.

Rio Tinto said it has already seen the benefits from AutoHaul in increased train speeds and fewer stops that have cut more than an hour from average journey times.

Getting to this point was not easy. The actual commissioning of the autonomous trains project has been put off a few times, partly due to software problems.

Delays with the implementation of autonomous iron ore trains hurt Rio Tinto’s output in 2016. The miner ended up producing 330 million tonnes, down from the original target of 350 million tonnes.

The so-called Autohaul plan is part of the “Mine of the Future” project the company launched in 2008 and which also included the introduction of autonomous haulage trucks, automated drilling and the roll out of an operations centre near Perth airport.

In April, the Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of MSE met with FTSE Russell officials to discuss the situation that Mongolia may potentially be removed from the FTSE Frontier Markets Watchlist. Following the meeting, MSE made it a priority to implement T+2 settlement system and Delivery-versus-Payment mechanism, as such we formed a working group with the Mongolian Securities Clearing House and other market participants to speed up the implementation of necessary changes in the market infrastructure and worked closely on the drafting of the rules and regulations. We have notified on several occasions to the market participants including the Securities Clearing Corporation that there is a risk of removal from the Watchlist if the shift is not immediate. Unfortunately, FTSE Russell made their decision at their September review to remove Mongolia from the Watchlist due to the delay with compliance with the requirements and upon consideration that the re-implementation of T+2 settlement system is unlikely in the near future. Although it is disappointing, there is a possibility to be re-included on the FTSE Frontier Markets Watchlist if Mongolia adopts necessary changes before their next review in March 2018. MSE encourages all market participants to treat the compliance with FTSE requirements and potential inclusion into the Watchlist as a top priority.