The International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group, in cooperation with the Mongolian Bank Association, has been implementing a program to enhance the supply chain finance market, especially focusing on the increase of loans and financing secured by moveable assets. For Mongolia, the "Law on Pledge of Movable Property and Intangible Property" was enacted and has been in effect since 2015 becoming one of the most frequently discussed legal relations.

Understanding the legal regulations of such relations and application of the law are essential for the growth of loans and financing secured by movable assets. In particular, this law is an economically significant law that provides a mechanism for securing valuable movable property while maintaining the basic concept of ownership in the Civil Code of Mongolia, thereby providing a mechanism for small and medium-sized businesses to obtain the necessary financial needs. In this regard, the concepts and issues of secured transactions and movable property collateral are outlined herein.

The idax cryptocurrency exchange, which is open to users from any country in the world, opened a year ago and now has more than 160,000 users. More than 53,000 of them are foreign users.

The technology, safety and maintenance of products have been improved over this year.

Advantages of idax include multi-coin trading, competitive fees (idax charges a flat fee of 0.2% per trade), a web-based platform.

The "Mongolian Stock Exchange" (MSE) started its primary market trading on December 26 by offering 34 percent of its total of 119,157,598 shares to the public.

As a result, the MSE raised MNT 57.8 billion through 7.417 orders which exceeded its initial target of MNT 11.9 billion by 4.8 times.

The Financial Regulatory Commission will review the subscriptions according to the Regulation on Securities Registration and issue a final report.

As part of its New Revival Policy, the Government of Mongolia has made a decision to make 25 state-owned companies public by offering their shares. In accordance with the decision, the MSE became the first state-owned company to issue its IPO and convert into a public company.

The Minister of Finance, B. Javkhlan, emphasized that the IPO of MSE became the starting point for publicizing state-owned companies.

Aspire Mining Ltd (ASX:AKM) is busy developing metallurgical coal assets in Mongolia, where it is working on its wholly owned Ovoot Coking Coal Project (OCCP) in the country's north.

The company has now wrapped up onsite activities related to a small-scale infill drilling program on the Ovoot mining licence, as previously planned and announced for the December quarter.

Approved drilling activities

The drilling was done in accordance with the exploration plan approved by the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority of Mongolia (MRPAM), along with an environmental protection plan approved by soum (council) and aimag (province) authorities administered under the Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism (MNET).

Exploration boreholes were drilled at 11 locations within the mining licence, for a total of 1,569 metres drilled.

Of these, 1,284 metres were of HQ size (including 487.5 metres of PCD2 drilling and 836.2 metres of DD3 drilling) and 285 metres were of PQ size (including 152.6 metres PCD and 131.6m DD).

The company has now delivered the water, coal and rock samples it gathered from the field to accredited laboratories in Ulaanbaatar.

Initial laboratory results are expected to be available in early 2023 to facilitate the intended hydrological, geotechnical and washability analyses for input into revised geological modelling and mine design and scheduling.

The implementation of the exploration program provided multiple commercial opportunities for people and businesses in Tsetserleg soum.

Over a two-month period, more than 30 local people were employed, and more than MNT 165 million (around US $50,000) was spent directly and indirectly on locally procured goods and services, which the company says represents a significant contribution to the local economy.

About Aspire Mining

Aspire Mining wholly owns the world-class Ovoot Coking Coal Project and has a 90% stake in the Nuurstei Coking Coal Project – both in the Khuvsgul aimag province of northern Mongolia, near the border with Russia.

The company is focused upon permitting, engineering and financing the Ovoot Project.

The plan is to mine coking coal, truck this to a company-owned terminal facility in Erdenet and then deliver the product to customers in China and Russia via the existing Mongolian rail network.

The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg handed over a donation of EUR 5 million for the Prevention and Reduction of Child Rheumatic Heart Disease in Mongolia to UNICEF Mongolia.

Rheumatism is the most commonly acquired heart disease globally in people under the age of 25. It starts as a sore throat from a bacterium called Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus) which can spread easily from one person to another. Every year, the disease claims 288,348 lives worldwide. The earlier it is detected; the earlier action is taken which leads to a better health outcome. According to 10-year morbidity data (2011-2021), children’s morbidity accounted for 29.1 percent of the total morbidity in Mongolia. The report, issued by the Center for Health Development in 2022, stated that respiratory tract infections had been the most common among children under 15.

“I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Government of Luxembourg on behalf of UNICEF Mongolia for its generous contribution made in support of the health of the most vulnerable children in Mongolia. Investing in the Prevention and Reduction of Child Rheumatic Heart Disease is one of the most cost-effective interventions to ensure a reduction in Child congenital diseases” says Evariste Kouassi-Komlan, UNICEF Representative in Mongolia.

UNICEF Mongolia’s Rheumatic prevention program aims to screen girls and boys, including adolescents, at an early stage for Rheumatic Heart Disease and streptococcus pharyngitis with the help of medical workers who are capable of using existing equipment to diagnose child heart disease and other non-communicable diseases.

Additionally, the program will create an enabling environment for antenatal care and early infancy and adolescents’ health, as well as train doctors, nurses, and health workers for an improved capacity in diagnosing and using existing equipment for early screening of congenital heart disease (CHD) and other non-communicable diseases among infant children. Finally, the program will promote healthy lifestyles including good hygiene through targeted awareness-raising campaigns.

China Three Gorges (CTG) has started work on an 80bn yuan ($11.6bn) desert energy mega-project that is claimed to be the largest of its type to feature renewables underway globally.

CTG in the final days of 2022 announced start of construction at the first pilot project of the Kubuqi Base Project in Inner Mongolia, which will feature wind, solar and energy storage at epic scales to help China meet its vast renewables ambitions.

The project will ultimately include 8GW of solar capacity and 4GW of turbines, along with some 4GW of coal capacity, according to local media.

“The Kubuqi Base project is the world's largest wind [and] photovoltaic base project developed and constructed in… desert areas,” CTG said in a statement, adding that it aims to build “the Three Gorges on the Great Wall”, in an apparent reference to the iconic hydropower project from which the company takes its name.

Kubuqi Base joins a number of desert renewable mega-projects planned globally, some with even higher capacity ambitions and many linked to planned production of green hydrogen.

The first project underway is a 1GW PV project with “corresponding” energy storage, said CTG which gave no schedule for the development as senior company and regional officials turned out for the groundbreaking.

CTG separately said it enters 2023 with 27 new projects underway with a total of 19.6GW of clean energy capacity.

China plans to roughly double its already world-leading renewable energy base to include 1,200GW of wind and solar capacity by 2030.

The Mongolian rangelands have been identified as among the most sensitive to climate change and variability, and degradation has been alarming. Over 70 percent of the rangelands have changed from their natural state .

In the 2014 survey, over half of the monitoring sites were observed as healthy, and over 10 percent were slightly degraded. However, in the following 2016 survey, the number of moderate, heavy, and fully degraded sites had increased.

Climate factors are the leading cause of degradation, human activity, and grazing pressure. In such circumstances, herders compensate for their vulnerability, losses of livestock and income due to extreme climate events, and decreases in vegetation by expanding their herds. Losses force herders to compensate by increasing livestock numbers, creating a vicious cycle.

Therefore, improving rangeland management offers Mongolia tremendous opportunities to mitigate climate change. It is estimated that Mongolia could avoid more than 440 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions over 20 years through soil carbon sequestration.

An Asian Development Bank project supported by concessional loans and grant financing from the Green Climate Fund, the European Investment Bank, and the European Union is currently aiming to transform behaviors and sector practices that had been major push factors in rangeland degradation.

The US press and industry premiere of director B.Amrasaikhan’s drama Harvest Moon played to an enthusiastic, packed audience at an Asian World Film Festival special event at the Landmark Theater in Westwood Village, Los Angeles. The film’s Producer S.Uran, Director of Photography Josua Fischer and Sound Designer/Editor/Mixer Evan Millard were in attendance.

Harvest Moon was Mongolia’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, due to take place on Sunday, March 12, 2023. Widely considered to be one of the best films to come out of Mongolia in recent years, it tells the touching story of a man, returning to his native village in the Mongolian steppe to care for his dying stepfather, who strikes up a bittersweet friendship with a young orphan boy, which changes their lives forever.

B.Amrasaikhan, who also stars in the film, is a high-profile, experienced Mongolian actor who has appeared in many acclaimed Mongolian films, as well as Netflix’s original series Marco Polo. Harvest Moon is his directorial debut, for which he also wrote the screenplay. Prior to the start of the film, a number of short videos were screened introducing co-production incentives from the Mongolian National Film Council.

With Harvest Moon the director wishes to express his people’s hearts, emotions and mindsets through the common challenges of a nomadic Mongolian society on the brink of change, in order to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.

The premiere of the film coincides with the decision by the Government of Mongolia to announce 2023 and 2024 as the years of “Visit Mongolia.” The country, known as the Last Frontier of the Nomadic Culture, has set a target to receive one million tourists in 2023. Many are confident that this film will be an essential promotion to achieve this goal.

Harvest Moon’s world premiere was held at the 41st Vancouver International Film Festival 2022, where it won the Vanguard Audience Award. Based on a short novel Tuutulei, by T. Bum-Erden, the film has received a number of strong, critically acclaimed reviews, and is represented for International Sales by Asian Shadows.