Mongolia's economy is affected by unfavorable external conditions, but economic growth is expected to reach 3 percent at the end of this year and 4-5 percent next year, highlighted the Governor of the Bank of Mongolia, B. Lkhagvasuren, in his speech during the discussion of the main direction of the government's monetary policy in 2023.

He said, "Inflation is at 13.2 percent and we are pursuing a policy to stabilize it at a single-digit number in 2023. Economic recovery is observed in sectors other than mining, construction, and transport logistics, but since the beginning of the year, the inflow of foreign currency has slowed down, the balance of payments has deteriorated, and exports cannot be carried out as much as desired. He pointed out that there is a difference of USD 2.3-2.5 billion between the statistics of the Customs General Administration and the flow of foreign exchange coming through the bank, which is due to the fact that the foreign currency income comes in the form of goods.

In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the macro-economic policy in the coming year and to improve the level of industrial development in the medium and long term. Specifically, our country exports 7,000 of the 10,000 tons of combed cashmere per year, and 3,000 tons are made into products. Therefore, we are discussing the implementation of a project in cooperation with an international organization on processing cashmere to an advanced level.

Mining products account for 93 percent of foreign trade exports, and other industrial sectors account for 6 percent. As a result of policies dominated by the mining sector, the economy will become dependent on one sector. Therefore, it was discussed during the discussion that it is desirable to increase the export of other sectors and implement projects and programs based on foreign resources as much as possible.

External factors and transport costs account for 50-60 percent of inflation. In addition, B. Bayardavaa, the Director of the Monetary Policy Department of the Bank of Mongolia, noted that the decision to increase the price of energy by enterprises and the increase in the price of flour creates conditions for inflation to increase by 2 percent. "Since the price of seasonal goods has the greatest impact on inflation, it is necessary to implement a stable supply policy. If public spending is expanded, foreign prices, transportation, oil prices, and nominal wages increase, and the amount of loans does not increase, inflation will likely reach 17-18 percent instead of 8 percent”.

As of the first nine months of this year, Mongolia's general budget revenue has reached MNT 12,545.1 billion, increased by MNT 1,410.3 billion or 12.7 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

As reported by the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry, the minerals sector’s revenue to the state budget has reached MNT 2,924.3 billion, a decrease of MNT 530.6 billion or 15.4 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

The revenues from the minerals sector include: MNT 2,806.2 billion from the mining sector (22.4 percent), MNT 72.4 billion from the oil industry (0.6 percent), MNT 27.1 billion as a royalty payment (0.2 percent), MNT, MNT 18.5 billion as other revenues (18.5 percent) and the minerals sector accounted for 23.3 percent of the state budget revenue.

Mongolia registered 18 new COVID-19 cases in past 24 hours.

13 of them were contacts in Ulaanbaatar, and 5 were recorded in the regions. No imported cases were found.

The number of coronavirus related deaths remained 2,131.

Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia S. Amarsaikhan and Minister of Digital Development and Communications N. Uchral issued a joint order. They established a working group to develop a “Common standard for providing services by the government to citizens and legal entities”.

Adopting this standard will improve the quality and availability of government services to citizens, reduce the number of service steps, and gradually transfer government services to digital versions.

Moreover, the “Common standard for providing services by the government to citizens and legal entities” will be revised and updated following international development tendencies and technical and technological advances from time to time to ensure its implementation.

For the past 15 years, the center of gravity of the global copper market has been a row of warehouses in Shanghai’s free-trade zone where the Yangtze River meets the Pacific.

Traders from London to Lima would obsess over the flows in and out of Shanghai’s huge bonded copper stockpile. It was the focal point for a multi-billion-dollar cash-for-copper trade, whereby Chinese companies would use metal as collateral for cheap financing. A cottage industry of analysts sprang up to estimate the size of what became the world’s largest cache of copper metal.

But now China’s bonded warehouses are all but empty. The once-frenetic flow of metal into the stockpile has come to a juddering halt as two dominant financiers of Chinese metals, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and ICBC Standard Bank Plc, have halted new business there. Numerous traders and bankers interviewed by Bloomberg said they believe the trade is dead for now, and some predicted the bonded stocks could drop to zero, or close to it.

The implications are being felt across the market, as the world’s largest copper consumer becomes more reliant on imports to meet its near-term needs at a time when global stocks are already at historically low levels. The Chinese copper market is at its tightest in more than a decade as traders pay massive premiums for immediate supplies.

For now, the miners, traders and financiers arriving in London this weekend for the annual LME Week jamboree are largely cautious on the near-term prospects for copper, given concerns about the global economy. But many in the market say they are braced for price spikes when the macroeconomic news eventually improves. And without its buffer of bonded stocks, any pickup in Chinese demand could have an explosive effect on the market.

“The physical market is so tight, it’s like a room full of gunpowder — any spark and the whole thing could blow,” said David Lilley, chief executive of hedge fund Drakewood Capital Management Ltd. Without the Shanghai bonded inventory, “we are living without a safety net.”

China’s bonded copper stockpile (so called because metal there is held “in bond,” before import duties have been paid) first came to the world’s attention in the wake of the global financial crisis. When copper prices slumped, Chinese traders bought up all the metal they could find — thanks to Beijing’s massive stimulus plan — making copper the leading indicator of the global economic recovery.

But China wasn’t actually consuming all that copper — at least, not right away. Instead, the traders directed it into the bonded stockpile, using the metal to raise financing. An expansion of government credit to support trade and infrastructure meant there were many easy opportunities for companies to raise money with copper — using bank lines for import financing or repurchase agreements, known as “repos,” to turn their metal inventories into short-term cash.

“It’s like a room full of gunpowder — any spark and the whole thing could blow.”

The money they raised could then be reinvested in other areas, such as the red-hot property market. Many Chinese companies with no connection to the commodities industry hired teams of traders and bankers to get into the copper game. The ebbs and flows of China’s credit cycle began to drive the global copper market.

At the peak in around 2011-12, China’s bonded stocks held about a million tons of copper, worth some $10 billion. This month, they totaled just 30,000 tons, according to industry consultancy Shanghai Metals Market. That’s down nearly 300,000 tons from earlier this year and the lowest level in decades, according to several Chinese physical traders who have been in the market for over 15 years.

Warehousing fraud

The decline began several years ago, with the massive warehousing fraud at Qingdao in 2014 that caused many banks and traders to reassess their appetite for the Chinese metals industry as a whole.

But it accelerated this year, as China’s economic slump, rising interest rates and several high-profile losses caused more participants to step away. The final blow came this autumn, as Maike Metals International Ltd., China’s top copper trader and a very active participant in the bonded copper trade, faced a liquidity crisis.

JPMorgan and ICBC Standard Bank have not entered new metal financing trades for bonded metal since September, and people familiar with the matter said it’s not clear if they will restart.

The Chinese physical traders, who asked not to be identified, said they expected Shanghai’s bonded copper stocks to drop further — potentially to zero, or just a few hundred tons — as market participants have lost confidence in the business of using metal to raise financing for other purposes.

To be sure, China’s copper imports and production have remained at high levels despite the economic slowdown: the metal just hasn’t been going into bonded warehouses.

But the consequence of the collapse in stocks is already being felt in the market. Copper for immediate delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange traded this month at a 2,020 yuan premium to copper for delivery in three months – the most since 2005. Physical premiums — which are paid over and above exchange prices to secure physical metal — have risen to the highest in nearly a decade at Yangshan, in Shanghai’s bonded zone.

And it’s not just in China that stocks are low. Robert Edwards at CRU Group estimates that global copper stocks currently stand at just 1.6 weeks of consumption — the lowest ever in the consultancy’s data going back to 2001.

As a result, any improvement in the macroeconomic outlook or pickup in Chinese demand could have dramatic implications for global copper prices.

“If the Chinese economy does get a bit better we could in a lot of commodities be saying, ‘Oh, where’s the inventory?’” said Mark Hansen, chief executive of metals trader Concord Resources Ltd. “We’ll find it just doesn’t exist.”

(By Alfred Cang and Jack Farchy)

Like most countries, Mongolia is also a victim of climate change and is taking steps to counter this scourge. The country is greening its environment, which seems a peculiarity, given its topography. But it is moving passionately towards creating a sanctuary for greenery in the Gobi Desert.

Greening Mongolia’s environment seems to be a peculiarity considering the vast expanse of Mongolia’s southern Gobi. Growing trees and plants to create a green oasis in an arid region may seem inconceivable, but Mongolia is bucking the trend and proving sceptics wrong.

If Singapore has a target of growing one million trees by 2030, then Mongolia has an even more ambitious target: it plans to grow one billion trees by that year.

The government manifests its seriousness by pledging to spend at least 1 percent of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) on a comprehensive national programme.

The Mongolian government has drawn up a three-stage plan for this campaign, with a preparatory phase planned for 2021-24, an intensification phase in 2024-26 and a sustainable implementation phase in 2027-30.

Mongolia needs to act quickly as desertification degrades the land’s fertility. The country is now confronting a major problem affecting over three-quarters of its total land territory. The lives of the country’s nomadic herders are now under threat because of climate change, which also erodes the nation’s food and water security.

Public-private sector partnerships have been forged to focus on reforestation and forest management, giving an impetus to the tree-planting programme. Several big firms have committed to planting 20 million to 120 million trees over the coming decade.

16 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in Mongolia on October 24.

13 of them were contacts in Ulaanbaatar, and 3 were registered in the regions. No imported cases were found.

The death toll from coronavirus remained 2,131.

Every year, the Department of State administers the Diversity Visa Program for applicants from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. For the year 2024, up to 55,000 Diversity Visas (DVs) will be available worldwide. There is no cost to register for this program. The online registration period for the Diversity Visa 2024 Program (DV-2024) begins on Wednesday, October 5, 2022, and ends on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, at 12:00 noon.

IMPORTANT REMINDERS when you apply for this program:

Read all instructions before submitting your application: https://mn.usembassy.gov/.../immigrant.../diversity-visa-mn/

Go to dvprogram.state.gov to submit your entry. This is the ONLY way to enter.

Beware of scams. There is NO FEE to enter.

Beware of those who claim they can improve your chances if you pay them or who offer to complete your application for you. If someone does help you with your application, you should be present so that you can provide the correct answers to all questions and to make sure that you keep a printout of your confirmation page with your unique confirmation number.

You must use a recent photo. Make sure your photo was taken in the last six months. Using an old photo will disqualify you. Your photos must meet the same standards as U.S. visa photos.

Only submit ONE entry per person. If your name is entered more than once per DV season (DV-2024), you will be disqualified.

List ONLY your legally married spouse on your application. Listing a partner on your application if you are not legally married at the time of your registration for the lottery will result in disqualification.

List ALL of your children under the age of 21 on your application, even if they do not live with you or will not be traveling/immigrating with you. Incorrect or incomplete information in your entry will result in disqualification.

Keep your unique confirmation number. You will need this number to check whether you have been selected to apply for a Diversity Visa.

The Department of State determines who is selected through a randomized drawing. Selections will be made starting on May 6, 2023 (Washington, DC, Eastern Standard Time). The U.S. government will NOT inform you directly if you are selected. The Entrant Status Check on the website dvprogram.state.gov/ESC is the ONLY way to see if you were selected. Do NOT be fooled by any letter or e-mail announcements; these are scams.

Being selected in the DV lottery drawing does not guarantee you an interview or a visa. It means that you are eligible to apply for the visa.

The entry period ends on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, at 12:00 pm. Submit your entry before the deadline. Good luck to everyone who applies!