1 MONGOLIA MARKS CENTENNIAL WITH A NEW COURSE FOR CHANGE WWW.EASTASIAFORUM.ORG PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      2 E-MART OPENS FIFTH STORE IN ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA, TARGETING K-FOOD CRAZE WWW.BIZ.CHOSUN.COM PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      3 JAPAN AND MONGOLIA FORGE HISTORIC DEFENSE PACT UNDER THIRD NEIGHBOR STRATEGY WWW.ARMYRECOGNITION.COM  PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      4 CENTRAL BANK LOWERS ECONOMIC GROWTH FORECAST TO 5.2% WWW.UBPOST.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      5 L. OYUN-ERDENE: EVERY CITIZEN WILL RECEIVE 350,000 MNT IN DIVIDENDS WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      6 THE BILL TO ELIMINATE THE QUOTA FOR FOREIGN WORKERS IN MONGOLIA HAS BEEN SUBMITTED WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      7 THE SECOND NATIONAL ONCOLOGY CENTER TO BE CONSTRUCTED IN ULAANBAATAR WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      8 GREEN BOND ISSUED FOR WASTE RECYCLING WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      9 BAGANUUR 50 MW BATTERY STORAGE POWER STATION SUPPLIES ENERGY TO CENTRAL SYSTEM WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      10 THE PENSION AMOUNT INCREASED BY SIX PERCENT WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      КОКС ХИМИЙН ҮЙЛДВЭРИЙН БҮТЭЭН БАЙГУУЛАЛТЫГ ИРЭХ ОНЫ ХОЁРДУГААР УЛИРАЛД ЭХЛҮҮЛНЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     "ЭРДЭНЭС ТАВАНТОЛГОЙ” ХК-ИЙН ХУВЬЦАА ЭЗЭМШИГЧ ИРГЭН БҮРД 135 МЯНГАН ТӨГРӨГ ӨНӨӨДӨР ОЛГОНО WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     ХУРИМТЛАЛЫН САНГИЙН ОРЛОГО 2040 ОНД 38 ИХ НАЯДАД ХҮРЭХ ТӨСӨӨЛӨЛ ГАРСАН WWW.NEWS.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ЭРДЭНЭС ОЮУ ТОЛГОЙ” ХХК-ИАС ХЭРЛЭН ТООНО ТӨСЛИЙГ ӨМНӨГОВЬ АЙМАГТ ТАНИЛЦУУЛЛАА WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     Л.ОЮУН-ЭРДЭНЭ: ХУРИМТЛАЛЫН САНГААС НЭГ ИРГЭНД 135 МЯНГАН ТӨГРӨГИЙН ХАДГАЛАМЖ ҮҮСЛЭЭ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ENTRÉE RESOURCES” 2 ЖИЛ ГАРУЙ ҮРГЭЛЖИЛСЭН АРБИТРЫН МАРГААНД ЯЛАЛТ БАЙГУУЛАВ WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ORANO MINING”-ИЙН ГЭРЭЭ БОЛОН ГАШУУНСУХАЙТ-ГАНЦМОД БООМТЫН ТӨСЛИЙН АСУУДЛААР ЗАСГИЙН ГАЗАР ХУРАЛДАЖ БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     АЖИЛЧДЫН САРЫН ГОЛЧ ЦАЛИН III УЛИРЛЫН БАЙДЛААР ₮2 САЯ ОРЧИМ БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19     PROGRESSIVE EQUITY RESEARCH: 2025 ОН “PETRO MATAD” КОМПАНИД ЭЭЛТЭЙ БАЙХААР БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19     2026 ОНЫГ ДУУСТАЛ ГАДААД АЖИЛТНЫ ТОО, ХУВЬ ХЭМЖЭЭГ ХЯЗГААРЛАХГҮЙ БАЙХ ХУУЛИЙН ТӨСӨЛ ӨРГӨН МЭДҮҮЛЭВ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19    

Events

Name organizer Where
MBCC “Doing Business with Mongolia seminar and Christmas Receptiom” Dec 10. 2024 London UK MBCCI London UK Goodman LLC

NEWS

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Softbank tycoon Masayoshi Son expands empire with latest buy www.asahi.com

The $3.3 billion (2.6 trillion yen) acquisition by SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese telecommunications, internet and solar energy giant, of Fortress Investment Group marks tycoon Masayoshi Son's latest step in building an investment empire.

Son said the deal, announced by both sides Wednesday, will immediately contribute to his strategy for growth and complement his Softbank Vision Fund plan for investing in leading technologies including artificial intelligence and the "internet of Things," which links devices through the Internet.

"Fortress' excellent track record speaks for itself, and we look forward to benefiting from its leadership, broad-based expertise and world-class investment platform," Son said in a statement.

Tokyo-based Softbank has been aggressive in global acquisitions and has been seeking partners for its private fund for technology investments that it says may grow to $100 billion. Son appears determined to deliver on his promise to President Donald Trump to invest $50 billion in U.S. startups and create 50,000 jobs.

In buying New York-based Fortress, he is betting more on Fortress's wide ranging expertise and heft in global investment than on gaining any edge in the technology sector: the U.S. investment house has largely focused on finance and real estate, leisure industries, transport and other infrastructure.

Private equity accounts for nearly two-thirds of the company's investments.

Softbank's shares jumped 1.6 percent Wednesday in Tokyo trading. Shares in Fortress were up 6.5 percent late Tuesday.

Softbank also owns the U.S. wireless company Sprint Corp. and Britain's ARM Holdings, which is known as an innovator in the "internet of things," and in technology used in smartphones.

Fortress said its senior professionals will stay to keep up its fund performance.

Fortress co-chairmen Pete Briger and Wes Edens praised Son as "visionary." They said the companies have much in common, and the deal will benefit shareholders.

"We join a company with tremendous scale and resources, and a culture completely aligned with our focus on performance, service and innovation," they said in a joint statement.

Softbank, the first carrier to offer the iPhone in Japan, also sells the Pepper human-shaped companion robot. The company, founded in 1981, has within its investment empire financial technology and ride-booking services.

Last week, the company reported its October-December profit soared to about 40 times what it was a year ago.

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These 10 companies spend most looking for gold, copper www.mining.com

A new report by SNL Metals and Mining on exploration spending by the largest mining companies, documents the shifting sands in the mining industry last year as the sector began to turn around.

SNL, part of S&P Global, notes that larger players allocated a total of nearly $2.2 billion for non-ferrous exploration during the year. Companies with the 20 largest exploration budgets in 2016 accounted for 31% of the just under $6.9 billion worldwide exploration total.

The top 10 companies were responsible for over $1 of every $5 spent on exploration worldwide last year with combined budgets of some $1.46 billion.

Exploration for gold represented 56% of the total budget of the largest players – gold companies usually dominate the top 20 list. Together copper and gold account for 90% of the budgets of the top 10 companies.

The 12 largest gold miners spending on exploration came to 37% of worldwide gold allocations. Two companies, Canada’s Agnico-Eagle and South Africa-based Gold Fields joined the top ten for the first time spending $111 million and $125 million respectively.

These 10 companies spend most looking for gold, copper
Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence
Last year’s top spender AngloGold Ashanti allocated nearly half its $185 million budget to brownfield projects with the lion’s share going into Colombia.

Larger players represented 34% of the global total spent on copper exploration. In turn two companies, Rio Tinto and Antofagasta accounted for nearly half of the spending by the top 20 companies delineating and finding copper deposits.

SNL also notes that Rio Tinto was one of the few major mining companies whose planned exploration spending increased in 2016, up about 19% to $218 million. The Melbourne-based company was also the only large firm to spend money ($20 million) on uranium exploration.

Despite the weakness on uranium markets, total global spending on uranium was $284 million last year, nearly as much as was spent on diamonds and surpassing exploration dollars for nickel.

A persistent financing drought has squeezed juniors' budgeting to the point that the majors have become the biggest drivers of early-stage exploration.
The only other diversified mining company in the top 10 – Vale – spent $51.5 million looking for copper and $41.5 million for nickel. Allocations for other minerals were mostly focused on phosphates and potash in Brazil and Peru.

Overall diamonds accounted for 8% (with Alrosa and De Beers responsible for about 54%) and other targets, including silver, potash, phosphates and manganese made up 7% of the spending by larger players.

Considering the stage of exploration, spending patterns in the industry changed last year notes SNL:

Conventional wisdom holds that the major companies leave grassroots exploration to the juniors. It may therefore be surprising that the larger players contributed 34% of all greenfields allocations in 2016.

A persistent financing drought has squeezed juniors' budgeting to the point that the majors have become the biggest drivers of early-stage exploration.

Similarly, the larger players traditionally dominate minesite spending; however, in 2016 they accounted for only 37% of the near-mine work, as their investors demand improved returns over growth.

It is also interesting to note that the major players were responsible for just 25% of late-stage and feasibility work.

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Regulation agreements between organizations revised www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The relations concerning the agreements the central and local government administrative bodies establish with foreign organizations are governed by Regulation on Establishing Agreements Between Organizations. On February 15, the cabinet approved the revisions of this regulation.

In compliance with the original regulation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is obliged to review the contents of new deals, administering relations, effectiveness and relevance of new agreements, to be established by Mongolia’s government bodies with international organizations. The Ministry also checks if the agreement is in accordance with intergovernmental agreements of Mongolia and similarity of drafts in both languages.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reviewed 63 agreements in 2015 and 79 in 2016 to make comments and give necessary recommendations to the agreement parties. A critical amount of mistakes and shortcomings were detected, to be specific, non-compliance with the Mongolian laws and regulations and international agreements, abuse of authority by local and state administrators, duplication of objectives that have already been agreed under international agreements, errors in the development of agreement drafts and preparation of unnecessary deals just to organize visits.

The revisions of the Regulation had been developed in order to reduce occurrences of above mentioned errors.

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Verizon close to Yahoo deal, price cut of $250-350 million: sources www.reuters.com

 
Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) is close to a revised deal to buy Yahoo Inc's (YHOO.O) core internet business for $250 million to $350 million less than the original agreed price of $4.83 billion, according to a source briefed on the matter.
 
Since last year, Verizon had been trying to persuade Yahoo to amend the terms of the acquisition agreement to reflect the economic damage from two cyber attacks. A source told Reuters that the deal, which could come as soon as this week, will entail Verizon and Yahoo sharing the liability from potential lawsuits related to the data breaches.
 
Another person familiar with the situation said the price cut was likely to be around $250 million, a figure that Bloomberg reported earlier on Wednesday.
 
A representative from Verizon declined to comment. Yahoo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
 
"Maybe this isn't quite as much of a discount as initially thought, but it's at least something," said Dave Heger, senior equity analyst at Edward Jones.
 
Verizon hopes to combine Yahoo's search, email and messenger assets, as well as advertising technology tools, with its AOL unit, which Verizon bought in 2015 for $4.4 billion. Verizon has been looking to mobile video and advertising for new sources of revenue outside an oversaturated wireless market.
 
But Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo has been under scrutiny by federal investigators and lawmakers since disclosing the largest known data breach in history in December, months after disclosing a separate hack.
 
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a probe into whether Yahoo should have disclosed the breaches, which occurred in 2013 and 2014, sooner, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal last month.
 
On Wednesday, Yahoo sent a warning to users whose accounts may have been accessed by intruders between 2015 and 2016, as part of a data security issue related to the breach it disclosed in December. A person familiar with the matter said notifications have gone out to a mostly final list of users.
 
Yahoo shares rose 1.5 percent to $45.69 in afternoon trading. Verizon shares fell 0.7 percent to $47.93.
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Yellen: Immigration policy change may slow growth www3.nhk.or.jp

 
The chair of the US Federal Reserve has repeated that President Donald Trump's immigration policies could slow the country's economic growth. Janet Yellen made the testimony before a House committee.
Yellen said that immigration has been an important source of labor force growth in the United States.
She also said that radical change in immigration would certainly affect the potential of the economy to grow.
Yellen stressed the importance of immigrants in the labor force during her Senate testimony the previous day.
The Fed chair has also been expressing concern that Trump's proposed tax cuts and stepped-up spending plans could hurt the country's fiscal health.
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Lufthansa agrees pay deal with pilot union www.bbc.com

 
Lufthansa has struck a deal to solve a five-year-long dispute with pilots that has cost it millions of euros.
Germany's largest airline and the Cockpit union have agreed upon an arbitrator's proposal for a new wage agreement that covers about 5,400 pilots.
The firm has agreed to a four-stage 8.7% total wage increase and a one-off 30m-euro (£25.5m) payment.
That works out at some 5,000 euros to 6,000 euros per employee.
Cockpit union spokesman Markus Wahl said although union negotiators had agreed upon the deal, its members would have the final say on whether to accept.
The dispute has seen pilots take part in 15 strikes.
The union had wanted an average annual pay rise of 3.7% for its members in Germany, backdated to 2012.
Despite a record profit last year, the company said it had been forced to cut costs to compete with budget rivals such as Ryanair in Europe and the likes of Emirates on long-haul routes.
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China may tighten up coal output curbs again as prices collapse www.mining.com

China may soon reinstate coal production curbs in an effort to avoid the return of an oversupply and improve the profitability of its heavily indebted coal industry.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which is the country’s top planner, is considering to limit local coal output by restricting miners to a 276-day operational year, rather than the 330 days they are currently allowed to work.

Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the fresh clampdown will remain in place for six months, with some mines and areas possibly excluded, though no decision has been made yet.

Coal mining restrictions would remain in place for six months, with some operations and areas possibly excluded.
Coal, particularly the steelmaking kind, rocketed last year after Beijing introduced production curbs. Coking coal prices more than quadruple and peak at over $300 a tonne in December — a level last seen in 2011. Thermal coal, which is used in power stations to produce electricity, also benefitted from the restrictions. Its recovery helped major producers such as Glencore (LON:GLEN), Anglo American (LON:AAL) and Teck Resources (TSE:TECK.A, TECK.B) (NYSE:TECK) straighten up their balance sheets.

But after a recent pause following 12 weeks of non-stop selling, the rout on coking coal markets resumed on Tuesday. The steelmaking raw material fell 4.7% to $154.80 on the day, the lowest since early September.

China, the world’s largest coal consumer and producer, said last month it continues to work towards its long-term plans of reducing the share of coal in its overall energy mix and consequent smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

Other than shutting down mines and forcing production cutbacks Beijing has also halted the approval of new coal mines until at least 2019, eliminated about 560 million tonnes of coal production capacity and closed 7,250 coal mines in the last five years.

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Mongolian livestock: 20 million young expected www.news.mn

A total of 61 million livestock have been enduring an extra harsh winter in Mongolia. The official number of animals will be updated once livestock have finished giving birth to their young this spring. Preliminary estimates are that a total of 20 million young livestock will be born from March to May.

However, as of 14th of February, the ongoing 'Dzud' (the Mongolian term for harsh winter conditions) has resulted in the loss of 75 thousand livestock. More than 100 soums of 10 provinces currently are experiencing Dzud conditions.

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Siberia's sleeping oil giant could soon be awakened www.rt.com

The gigantic Samotlor oil field in Russia's Siberia holds 25 billion barrels. At its 1980s peak, it pumped 3 million barrels per day (bpd). Now it pumps 95 barrels of water to get five barrels of oil, but it could make money again, Bloomberg reports.
An idea to cut taxes for fields that produce more water than oil is being discussed in Moscow, according to the media.

“It is a supergiant field even today after almost 50 years of production, the elephant of elephant fields. There is still a lot of oil left,” Ildar Davletshin, an analyst at Renaissance Capital told Bloomberg.

The field belongs to Rosneft, and if the tax cuts are implemented, Samotlor can make the oil company an extra 90 billion rubles or $1.58 billion every year, Davletshin said.

In the 1980s, the Siberian oil field produced 3 million bpd, which is more than today’s daily production of the fourth-largest OPEC member – the United Arab Emirates.

The Soviet Union tried to keep up output and injected water to improve recovery, which led to cracks in the rock. As a result, Samotlor started producing water in circles, and the fall of the Soviet Union only sped up its demise. In 1996, the oilfield produced only 300,000 bpd. Production rose as high as 600,000 bpd in 2009, according to James Henderson, an oil analyst at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Russian ministries are considering a bill to reduce the tax on deposits that hold more than 150 million tons of resources, but produce more than 90 percent water, a government official told Bloomberg, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. At the moment, all such oil fields belong to Rosneft.

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MPs set up lobby group for responsible mining www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ A lobby group to support responsible mining was established by some parliament members. MPs A.Undraa, N.Amarzaya, Ts.Garamjav, Ya.Sodbaatar, O.Sodbileg, G.Temuulen and J.Bat-Erdene initiated the lobby group to raise an issue of responsible mining development at legislative level within legal framework.

They consider the mining sector - one of the main economic pillars should be developed in a responsible and transparent manner, meeting modern standards and requirements and to be in harmony with the long-term development goal. To realize it, relative laws and regulations should be improved, opening and closing of mines, and rehabilitation should be executed with high quality as well as natural resources should be utilized properly and effectively through introducing advanced technology.

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