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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Oil firms suffer revenue dip www.chinadaily.com.cn

Lower prices and weak demand take toll on global energy producers
 
China's oil and gas giants saw their revenues slump in the July-September period, according to their financial reports, against the backdrop of a suppressed global oil and gas market and lower domestic natural gas prices.
 
The third-quarter reports of China's big three oil firms-China National Petroleum Corp, China National Offshore Oil Corp and China Petrochemical Corp-showed that CNPC's revenue fell by 3.8 percent to 411.4 billion yuan ($60.97 billion), CNOOC by 15.2 percent to 30.75 billion yuan, and Sinopec by 3.1 percent to 472 billion yuan.
 
The drop in revenues for the big three is a direct result of plummeting international oil prices, as well as weak economic growth. So, the glory days of high oil prices have long gone and the downtrend will continue, said analysts.
 
Wang Lu, an Asia-Pacific oil and gas analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence, said cheap oil and lowered gas prices are the major reasons behind the revenue declines of PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC.
 
Oil firms have shut down high cost wells, reduced infill drilling and renegotiated contracts to cut costs, said Wang.
 
According to Dong Xiucheng, a professor at the China University of Petroleum in Beijing, while oil companies are struggling when prices are falling, it is an opportunity for them to restructure and reduce costs.
 
Deteriorating business in oil exploration is not all bad, Sinopec has taken advantage of falling oil prices to lower its production costs for the downstream refining business.
 
It reported a sixfold third-quarter profit rise as refining gains helped overcome deepening losses from oil and gas production, while CNOOC and CNPC witnessed declining profits during the past three months.
 
According to Wang, Sinopec's gains in refining, chemicals and marketing more than offset its exploration and production losses. CNOOC is a pure upstream company, so its earnings are most exposed to low oil prices among the three oil majors.
 
PetroChina's refining, marketing and chemical segments are weaker and smaller than Sinopec's, while its exploration and production unit is bigger than Sinopec's. That's why PetroChina had an earnings decline despite improvements in the downstream sector, she said.
 
The State-owned companies are not alone among international peers struggling with plummeting oil and gas prices. Exxon Mobil Corp has recently extended its longest streak of profit declines, while France's Total SA also posted a 25 percent drop in third-quarter profit.
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Alibaba sales and earnings buck the economic trend www.chinadaily.com.cn

Company's fledgling cloud computing unit is star performer
 
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd showed once again that a slowing Chinese economy isn't holding it back.
 
The country's largest operator of internet shopping malls posted sales and earnings that beat analyst estimates as revenue easily outstripped economic growth.
 
Moreover, Alibaba's fledgling cloud computing business more than doubled sales and almost broke even, a significant feat for a capital-intensive business.
 
The results come about a week before Katy Perry kicks off Alibaba's annual Singles Day event (Nov 11), the world's biggest 24-hour shopping promotion and a closely watched barometer of Chinese consumer demand. Alibaba continues to capture a greater share of digital advertising as users shift to mobile devices and marketers spend more money online to reach them.
 
"I don't know if anyone's doing better than Alibaba," said Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc, commenting on Chinese internet companies. "They were able to drive growth by expanding beyond e-commerce in mobile browsing, media, cloud and continued to increase their number of ads and the money they charge for it."
 
Revenue rose 55 percent to 34.3 billion yuan ($5.1 billion) in the quarter, surpassing the 33.9 billion-yuan expected by analysts. Alibaba's quarterly sales have now beaten estimates for five straight quarters and have missed only twice since its record IPO in 2014.
 
Shares of Alibaba rose as much as 2.7 percent in early trade on Wednesday. The stock has gained about 24 percent after a 22-percent dive in 2015, when the company grappled with the slowdown and lawsuits accusing it of being slow to remove counterfeits from its websites.
 
While core commerce revenue rose 41 percent to 28.5 billion yuan in the September quarter, the cloud unit was the star performer.
 
The division, which competes with Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc, grew sales by 130 percent and narrowed its loss to 57 million yuan after more than doubling the number of paying customers to 651,000.
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Japan, Russia to boost economic cooperation www3.nhk.or.jp

Japan and Russia have agreed to select about 30 priority projects for economic cooperation.
 
Japan's trade and industry minister Hiroshige Seko and Russia's economic development minister Alexei Ulyukayev signed a joint statement in Moscow on Thursday.
 
They also agreed to pick model cities in Russia to promote urban development. Japan will teach Russian manufacturers ways to improve productivity.
 
The two sides agreed on joint petroleum and natural gas development, the introduction of wind power generation in Russia and to share technology to decommission the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
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Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda buys Dick Clark productions for $1bn www.theguardian.com

The Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has finalized a $1bn deal to buy Dick Clark Productions, the company announced on Thursday.
 
Dalian Wanda, a real estate and entertainment corporation owned by a billionaire who has aggressively pursued US film companies in recent years, said it had acquired a 100% stake in Dick Clark production “marking Wanda’s entry into the television production industry”.
 
“Obtaining top television production rights brings about complementary and coordinated development for Wanda’s current focuses on the film, tourism, and sports industries,” the Chinese firm said in a statement.
 
The Wanda Group already owns AMC Theaters, which it bought in July for $650m, and the production company Legendary Entertainment, which it bought in January for $3.5bn.
 
Dick Clark Productions is the Chinese conglomerate’s first foray into television, according to the Wanda Group, which noted the firm’s ownership of the Golden Globes, the American Music Awards and the eponymous New Year’s countdown event. The company had fallen from its prominence in decades past, however, when Clark hosted variety shows, such as American Bandstand, to consistently strong ratings.
 
Industry sources told Variety magazine they were surprised by the deal, with two people calling the $1bn sale “nonsensical” and “unreal”.
 
The Chinese firm said the American company’s management “will remain in its entirety” and that Wanda “has signed a long-term operation target agreement with the management”.
 
In late September the Wanda Group’s chairman, Wang Jianlin, drew the attention of 16 members of Congress who questioned the actions of his company, which they said was a “state champion” of Beijing. In October, representatives asked the justice department to review the company’s potential ties to senior members of China’s communist party.
 
Wang has called himself an “angel” investor in struggling US entertainment companies, and said that his pursuit of American companies will help them profit in the huge Chinese market. He has also said that he hopes the group will control 20% of the world’s movie theater seats by 2020, up from the 13% it currently owns in China, the US and Europe, after recent purchases of Odeon and UCI Cinemas. Earlier this year the conglomerate opened a theme park to rival Disney’s new Shanghai attraction, calling its site Wanda World.
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Starbucks looks for China caffeine hit www.bbc.com

Starbucks boss Howard Schultz has said expansion in China will secure its future for "decades to come".
While Starbucks still makes most of its profit in the US, Mr Schultz said its Chinese stores were the most efficient and lucrative.
It comes as the world's largest coffee shop chain said it posted its "most profitable quarter - capping off the most profitable year".
Operating profit rose 16% to $4.2bn (£3.4bn) for the year.
Last month, Starbucks announced plans to more than double its stores in China to 5,000 by 2021.
In the fourth quarter, Starbucks' profit in China and Asia Pacific increased 48% to $192m, helped by the opening of nearly 100 new stores.
However, globally, sales at existing stores rose by only 4% in the quarter, which was lower than the 4.9% rise analysts had expected.
The company said a change in consumer behaviour was partly to blame for the slow down.
In what Mr Schultz described as a "seismic shift in consumer traffic", the popularity of online shopping was keeping people at home and away from main streets or malls.
In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, sales in fact dropped by 1% while in China and Asia Pacific, they were up by the same percentage point.
The company said it operates 25,085 stores in 75 countries worldwide with 690 new ones opened in the last quarter.
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Google fights EU price comparison case www.bbc.com

Google has again rejected the EU's objections to how it displays shopping links in its search results.
It said the investigation following complaints from price comparison websites had failed to understand the "reality" of online shopping.
It blamed a drop in traffic for price comparison sites on Amazon and others.
Europe's competition commissioner first accused the firm of abusing its dominance in search in April 2015 and made further claims in July 2016.
Prominence
Google's shopping results appear as a box of images and links displayed alongside other search results.
In 2015, the EU competition commissioner claimed these results gave prominence to Google's own services and advertisements, to the detriment of price comparison websites, which may have lost visitors.
Google responded that the EU had failed to take into account the significance of online shopping giants such as Amazon, which it said also competed against price comparison websites.
In its updated claim, the EU said Amazon could not be considered a rival to price comparison websites because it sometimes paid such sites to be included in search results.
Google's latest response says websites such as Amazon get a "tiny fraction" of their visitors from price comparison websites, "hardly enough to support the idea that they don't compete" with one another.
It also pointed out that Amazon provides its own price comparison tools for its customers.
"The commission's revised case still rests on a theory that just doesn't fit the reality of how most people shop online," the company said in a blog.
"It's not surprising that when Amazon and other new competitors arrived in European countries, traffic to sites offering only price comparison went down."
The company said it would "look forward" to continuing discussions with the commission.
FairSearch Europe - a lobby group that was one of the complainants against Google - said Google's actions were "anti-consumer".
In a statement, the group said: "We believe it is the European Commission that has the interests of consumers in mind, not a private company that makes money by using its market power to charge high prices to advertisers.
"When consumers look at Google ads they do not get the best, most relevant results. Instead, they get results from advertisers willing to pay Google the most money."
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IEA doubts electric cars will end oil age www.rt.com

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says it’s not likely electric cars could cause oil demand to peak anytime soon.
 
According to the agency’s Executive Director Fatih Birol, it is trucks, aviation and the petrochemical industry that drive oil demand growth, and not cars. “We don’t have major alternatives to oil products there. I don’t buy the argument that electric cars alone will cause a peak in oil demand at least in the short and medium-term,” Birol said at the Energy for Tomorrow conference in Paris.
 
The number of electric vehicles on the roads has risen six fold since 2014, the IEA said. 550,000 new plug-in cars were sold last year. Electric vehicles made up less than one percent of all new cars sold in 2015.
 
Analysts have been warning about the potential threat of electric cars for the oil industry.
 
Fitch Ratings agency said last month if recent technology trends continue the electric car revolution may drive oil into an ‘investor death spiral.’ According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the multitrillion dollar ‘big crash’ could start as soon as 2023.
 
Analysts from BHP Billiton called 2017 the year when “the electric car revolution really gets started.” According to them, 140 million cars on the road will be electric by 2035, displacing 2.3 million barrels of oil per day.
 
Oil demand will peak in the 2020s and then the industry will start to shrink, according to Statoil Chief Executive Eldar Saetre.
 
Royal Dutch Shell also forecasts oil demand to peak in as little as five years while renewable energy and disruptive technologies gain traction. “We’ve long been of the opinion that demand will peak before supply,” said Simon Henry, Chief Financial Officer for Shell. “And that peak may be somewhere between 5 and 15 years hence, and it will be driven by efficiency and substitution, more than offsetting the new demand for transport,” he added.
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Market hungry for yield sees big upside in ruble bonds www.rt.com

With low oil prices dragging down the Russian currency, and a US interest rate increase in the offing, experts are suggesting investors hang on to ruble bonds because of their high yield.
 
Traders, borrowing dollars at close to zero percent to buy assets denominated in rubles, have gained as much as seven percent in yields in the last three months, the most among 31 major currencies, Bloomberg reports.
 
Since September, when Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina promised to keep the key rate unchanged into 2017 and OPEC promising to reach an accord on a production freeze, hedge funds have almost tripled net long ruble wagers.
 
The Russian currency has been significantly affected by the fall of oil prices as well as probable rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
 
However, these risks are temporary, according to Jan Dehn, the head of research at London-based investment manager Ashmore, who recommends buying the ruble until the end of the year.
 
“I don’t expect strong directional movements this year barring major surprises, but I expect the ruble to gradually appreciate against a backdrop of a weaker dollar next year,” he told Bloomberg.
 
While ruble-denominated assets have such high yields, selling them is unreasonable, according to analysts.
 
“What are the sellers going to buy in this environment after selling ruble assets? It’s not wise to sell, because ruble bonds still pay a nice carry,” said Lutz Roehmeyer at Landesbank Berlin Investment, advising investors to adopt a “buying-on-dips mentality.”
 
The monetary policy of central banks around the globe aimed at boosting economies by reducing interest rates is encouraging traders to gobble up high yield assets where they find them.
 
“The market is yield hungry,” said Tom Levinson, senior foreign exchange and interest rate strategist in Moscow at Sberbank CIB. He expects the ruble to climb toward 61 to the dollar by the New Year.
 
The carry-trades might provide investors with returns of nearly 15 percent by the end of next year, according to forecasts compiled by Bloomberg.
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Paris Agreement to take effect on Friday www3.nhk.or.jp

The Paris Agreement on climate change will take effect when the clock strikes 12 AM on Friday in New York, where the UN headquarters are based.

The agreement is the new international framework to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. It was adopted by more than 190 countries and territories at the UN climate conference in France last year.

The parameters of the framework say that it takes effect 30 days after more than 55 countries representing more than 55 percent of global emissions have ratified it. The requirements were met on October 5th.

The agreement aims to cut global emissions as quickly as possible and bring them to virtually zero in the latter half of this century.

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which mandated only advanced nations reduce emissions, the Paris Agreement covers all nations, including developing countries.

Each nation must submit reduction targets every 5 years and implement measures to achieve them.
The targets are up to each participant. Their commitment will be examined.

Delegates from around the world will gather in Morocco to begin this year's UN climate conference on Monday. They will discuss concrete rules to ensure emission cuts, including ways to verify whether nations have met their goals.

Parties to the Paris agreement will hold their first meeting on the sidelines of the conference. Japan will participate as an observer due to a delay in ratifying the agreement.

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Sumitomo Chem certifies products for UN sustainability goals www.asia.nikkei.com

TOKYO -- Sumitomo Chemical is linking such mainstays as auto battery materials to goals of the United Nations by creating its own certification system for them.

With the Paris Agreement on climate change now coming into force, the Japanese company has devised ways of responding to the growing international importance of such metrics in evaluating products. It aims to double sales of items related to the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals within the next five years.

The SDGs set 17 goals in such areas as clean energy, environmental protection, waste reduction and hunger. Governments, businesses and nongovernmental organizations are called upon to work together to meet the targets by 2030.

Sumitomo Chemical carried out the first round of reviews using the new certification system to find 21 products that qualified, such as lithium ion battery components and special membranes for separating carbon dioxide from gases.

Sales of the now-certified products totaled some 280 billion yen ($2.72 billion) in fiscal 2015, accounting for more than 10% of all sales. Through such efforts as broadening its selection of certified products, the company aims to lift the tally to 560 billion yen in fiscal 2020.

(Nikkei)

 
 
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