On August 17, at the ‘Economy in the midst of the pandemic - Public-Private-Investors Meeting’, Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene said the Government of Mongolia is announcing a policy to intensify public-private partnerships on the 200th day since its formation, which fell on the day of the meeting.

He stated that plans are afoot to establish five national committees and introduce a law on pandemic economic recovery. The Prime Minister also mentioned that instructions have been given to establish a Ministry of Digital Development and introduce an AI-based digital system into the government procurement process, as well as to attract investors to 100 mega projects announced by the government.

Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene underscored the five national committees will be under his direct control and that a sub-working group consisting of investors and representatives of the private sector will be established, which will bring an opportunity to improve public and private sector coordination and solve numerous pressing issues in the investment sector.

Following the Prime Minister’s statement, investors expressed their stances.

In his remarks, Asian Development Bank’s Country Director for Mongolia Pavit Ramachandran stressed the importance of the government’s plans to enhance the legal framework for investment, particularly the easing of restrictions in the law on foreign investment, saying “It is important to attract investment to principal sectors, specifically the 100 mega projects announced by the government. It is of utmost importance to intensify public private partnerships in doing so. Our team stands ready to work with the Mongolian government, Ministry of Finance, and other stakeholders in that effort.”

International Monetary Fund’s Resident Representative for Mongolia Seok Hyun Yoon emphasized that the submission of a bill on pandemic economic recovery is of great importance. “I would like to draw your focus to two priorities for industrial advancement. The government's investment management and expenditure control are what is important,” the IMF Resident Representative said.

World Bank Senior Country Economist Jean-Pascal Nguessa Nganou said, “I would like to congratulate the government of Mongolia that has achieved major success. The Prime Minister’s speech clearly showed how the economy would have been without the implementation of the vaccination program and the economic recovery plan. Loans were given to businesses and jobs were saved as part of the economic stimulation plan,” voicing WB’s readiness to cooperate further with the government of Mongolia.

Investors and representatives of international organizations expressed their readiness to cooperate in agriculture, renewable energy, and food processing and endorsed the Prime Minister's plans to digitalize the government procurement process, establish a Ministry of Digital Development, and create a legal environment for in-pandemic economic recovery. They also asked the Prime Minister to hold such meetings more often than only once.

At its regular meeting on August 18, the Cabinet zoned a 509.1 ha area in the 21st subdistrict of Khan-Uul district for the use of Buyant-Ukhaa airport and another 2.01 ha area for use by the Civil Aviation Authority of Mongolia.

Even though the Buyant-Ukhaa airport’s commercial flights have been transferred to Chinggis Khaan International Aiport, the airport has had to remain open to be used as a backup facility to handle connecting, international and local flights and charter flights and provide space for civil aviation training, aircraft maintenance, meetings, and exhibitions. The airport can also receive civil and state aircrafts, and special, emergency and charter aircrafts.

The Ministry of Health has reported today, August 19 that 1,875 new cases of COVID-19 have been detected after conducting tests nationwide within the past 24 hours. More specifically, 600 new cases were detected in the capital city, with 1,275 cases in rural regions.

In the last 24 hours, 1,672 coronavirus patients made recoveries. Furthermore, two new COVID-19 related deaths has been reported.

Of a total of 9910 patients currently undergoing treatment at hospitals, there are 5,676 patients in mild, 3,216 in serious, 832 in critical, and 186 in very critical conditions.

As of today, August 19, a total of 2,033,613 people have received the second dose of vaccines against COVID-19, equal to 62.5 percent of the total population of Mongolia, and 2,221,121 people or 68.3 percent of the population have gotten their first shots.

A total of 2,945 citizens were involved in immunization in the capital city yesterday, August 18. Specifically, 600 people received their first shots of COVID-19 vaccine while 2,079 people have gotten their second shots and 266 people were vaccinated with the third dose.

During the ‘Economy in the midst of the pandemic – Public-private-investors meeting’ which was held yesterday, marking the 200th day since the formation of the new government, Prime Minister of Mongolia L.Oyun-Erdene sincerely apologized on behalf of the Governments of Mongolia for all the uncertainties surrounding foreign investment over the past 30 years.

"The government will continue to take a very responsible approach to investment," he said. "As the Prime Minister, I promise to do my best to reflect on the past and start a new in the future."

He expressed that the President of Mongolia, the Speaker of the State Great Khural, and the Prime Minister have a united position on any matters.

“A working group set up by the Government is looking into the agreements reached with foreign investors in the past. I, hereby, announcing that the Mongolian government will take responsibility if any foreign investment, agreements, and mega projects are stalled due to the fault of the Mongolian side. This has also been announced during a meeting with the ambassadors.”

Mining giant BHP is set to leave the FTSE 100 index after unveiling plans to scrap the dual listing of its shares in London and Sydney.

The company, part of the UK's blue chip index since 2001, will move its main listing to Australia as part of a huge shake up announcement on Tuesday.

BHP regularly tops the list of the FTSE 100's biggest companies, depending on fluctuations in market values.

The move will see some investor funds that track the FTSE sell BHP shares.

"Now is the right time to unify BHP's corporate structure," said Ken MacKenzie, chairman of the world's biggest listed mining comany. "BHP will be simpler and more efficient, with greater flexibility to shape our portfolio for the future.

"Our plans announced today will better enable BHP to pursue opportunities in new and existing markets and create value and returns over generations."

The move comes as BHP announced it was combining its oil and gas assets with Australia's Woodside, creating one of the world's 10 biggest producers of liquified natural gas.

BHP's chief executive, Mike Henry, is trying the shift the company's focus towards metals such as copper and nickel, and away from fossil fuels. BHP has also put its last thermal coal mine up for sale.

Pressure for change

Abandoning the dual listing unwinds a structure that has been in place since 2001, when Australia's BHP merged with the UK's Billiton. The company was known as BHP Billiton until 2017.

Consumer goods giant Unilever also abandoned its dual structure more than three years ago when it chose London above Amsterdam.

BHP told shareholders that its pre-tax profit had risen to £17.8bn in the last financial year, up from £9.8bn. It was the best annual profit in almost a decade, fuelled by soaring iron ore prices.

Under the merger of the oil and gas assets with Woodside, BHP shareholders will have a 48% stake in the new company.

BHP had come under pressure from some shareholders, notably activist investor Elliott Advisors, to simplify its structure.

Supporters of simplification argued it would make it easier for BHP to raise money, do deals, and return money to shareholders. But BHP had said any gains would be less than the cost of change.

On Tuesday, BHP's market value was about £128bn, second in size in the FTSE 100 only to drugs firm AstraZeneca, which is worth about £131bn. BHP is the biggest company on the Australian stock exchange.

Jamie Maddock, equity research analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said BHP's departure was bad news for UK-focused investors as some asset managers and index tracking funds would be forced to sell their shares.

However, the move will also reduce significantly the FTSE 100's exposure to the mining sector. Big news and developments in the mining sector can affect shares across the wider index.

In the world’s high mountain regions, life needs ice. From the Rockies to the Himalayas, glaciers and other accumulations of snow and ice persist throughout the year. Often found on shaded slopes protected from the sun, these ice patches transform barren peaks into biological hot spots.

As an archaeologist, I value these snow and ice patches for the rare peek they can provide back in time through the fog of alpine prehistory. When people lose objects in the ice, ice patches act as natural deep freezers. For thousands of years, they can store snapshots of the culture, daily life, technology and behaviour of the people who created these artefacts.

Frozen heritage is melting from mountain ice in every hemisphere. As it does so, small groups of archaeologists are scrambling to cobble together the funding and staffing needed to identify, recover and study these objects before they are gone.

Alongside a group of scholars from the University of Colorado, the National Museum of Mongolia and partners from around the world, I am working to identify, analyse and preserve ancient materials emerging from the ice in the grassy steppes of Mongolia, where such discoveries have a tremendous impact on how scientists understand the past.

Understanding the past

During the warm summer months, unique plants thrive at the well-watered margins of ice patches. Large animals such as caribou, elk, sheep and even bison seek the ice to cool off or escape from insects.

Because ice patches are predictable sources of these plants and animals, as well as freshwater, they are important to the subsistence of nearby people nearly everywhere they are found. In the dry steppes of Mongolia, meltwater from mountain ice feeds summer pastures, and domestic reindeer seek out the ice in much the same way as their wild counterparts. Climate warming aside, ice margins act as magnets for people – and repositories of the materials they leave behind.

It is not just their biological and cultural significance that makes ice patches important tools for understanding the past. The tangible objects made and used by early hunters or herders in many mountainous regions were constructed from soft, organic materials.

These fragile objects rarely survive erosion, weather and exposure to the severe elements that are common in alpine areas. If discarded or lost in the ice, though, items that would otherwise degrade can be preserved for centuries in deep-freeze conditions.

But high mountains experience extreme weather and are often far from urban centres where modern researchers are concentrated. For these reasons, significant contributions by mountain residents to the human story are sometimes left out of the archaeological record.

For example, in Mongolia, the high mountains of the Altai hosted the region’s oldest pastoral societies. But these cultures are known only through a small handful of burials and the ruins of a few windswept stone buildings.

More discoveries

One of our discoveries was a finely woven piece of animal hair rope from a melting mountaintop ice patch in western Mongolia. On the survey, we spotted it lying among the rocks exposed at the edge of the retreating ice. The artefact, which may have been part of a bridle or harness, appeared as though it might have been dropped in the ice the just day before – our guides even recognised the technique of traditional manufacture. However, scientific radiocarbon dating revealed that the artefact is actually more than 1,500 years old.

Objects like these provide rare clues about daily life among the ancient herders of western Mongolia. Their excellent preservation allows us to perform advanced analyses back in the lab to reconstruct the materials and choices of the early herding cultures that eventually gave rise to pan-Eurasian empires like the Xiongnu and the Great Mongol Empire.

For example, scanning electron microscopy allowed us to pinpoint that camel hair was chosen as a fibre for making this rope bridle, while collagen preserved within ancient sinew revealed that deer tissue was used to haft a Bronze Age arrowhead to its shaft.

Ice patches in western Mongolia preserved a nearly intact arrow from the region’s Bronze Age past – along with sinew lashing and red pigmentation that reveal previously unknown details about the region’s early occupants. Photo credit: Peter Bittner, CC BY-ND

Sometimes, the objects that emerge end up overturning some of the archaeologists’ most basic assumptions about the past. People in the region have long been classified as herding societies, but my colleagues and I found that Mongolian glaciers and ice patches also contained hunting artefacts, like spears and arrows, and skeletal remains of big game animals like argali sheep spanning a period of more than three millennia. These finds demonstrate that big game hunting on mountain ice has been an essential part of pastoral subsistence and culture in the Altai Mountains for thousands of years.

A 1,500-year-old pile of argali sheep skulls and horn curls, perhaps intentionally stacked by ancient hunters, melts from a glacier margin in western Mongolia. Photo credit: William Taylor, CC BY-ND

But the clock is ticking. The summer of 2021 is shaping up to be one of the hottest ever recorded, as scorching summer temperatures fry the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest and wildfires ravage the Siberian Arctic. The impact of escalating temperatures is particularly severe in the world’s cold regions.

In the area my colleagues and I study in western Mongolia, satellite photos show that more than 40% of the surface cover of ice has been lost over the past three decades. After each artefact is exposed by the melting ice, it may have only a limited window of time for recovery by scientists before it is damaged, degraded or lost because of the combination of freezing, thawing, weather and glacial activity that can affect previously frozen artefacts.

Because of the scale of modern climate change, it is difficult to quantify how much material is being lost. Many of the high mountains of Central and South Asia have never been systematically surveyed for melting artefacts. In addition, many international projects have been unable to proceed since summer 2019 because of the Covid-19 pandemic – which has also prompted reductions, pay cuts and even complete closures of archaeology departments at leading universities.

Providing climate clues

Ice patch artefacts are irreplaceable scientific datasets that can also help researchers characterise ancient responses to climate change and understand how modern warming may affect today’s world.

In addition to human-made artefacts left behind in the snow, ice patches also preserve “ecofacts” – natural materials that trace important ecological changes, like shifting tree lines or changing animal habitats. By collecting and interpreting these datasets along with artefacts from the ice, scientists can gather insights into how people adapted to significant ecological changes in the past, and maybe expand the toolkit for facing the 21st-century climate crisis.

Meanwhile, the plant, animal and human communities that depend on dwindling ice patches are also imperilled. In northern Mongolia, my work shows that summer ice loss is harming the health of domestic reindeer. Local herders worry about the impact of ice loss on pasture viability. Melting ice also converges with other environmental changes: In western Mongolia, animal populations have dramatically dwindled because of poaching and poorly regulated tourism hunting.

As soaring heat exposes artefacts that provide insights into ancient climate resilience and other important scientific data, the ice loss itself is reducing humanity’s resilience for the years ahead.

William Taylor is an Assistant Professor and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

In the first 7 months of 2021, Mongolia traded with 141 countries from all over the world, and the total trade turnover reached USD 8.6 billion, of which USD 4.7 billion were exports and USD 3.8 billion were imports. The total foreign trade turnover increased by USD 1.8 billion (27.5%), where exports increased by USD 953.0 million (25.2%) and imports increased by USD 896.1 million (30.5%) compared to the same period of the previous year.

In July 2021, exports reached USD 630.3 million, decreased by USD 158.0 million (20.0%) and imports reached USD 577.1 million, decreased by USD 82.5 million (12.5%) compared to the previous month.

The foreign trade balance was in surplus of USD 903.4 million in the first 7 months of 2021, increased by USD 56.8 million from the previous year and compared with surplus of USD 846.6 million in the first 7 months of 2020.

In the first 7 months of 2021, USD 953.0 million increase in exports from the previous year was resulted from USD 319.9 million increase in Iron ores and concentrates, USD 762.6 million increase in copper concentrates exports and USD 234.1 million increase in coal exports.

In the first 7 months of 2021, 38.9% of the total imports were from China, 26.9% -- from Russia, 6.8% -- from Japan, 4.4% -- from the Republic of Korea and 3.5% -- from Germany, which are accounting for 80.5% of the total imports. In the first 7 months of 2021, 50.4% of the total imports from Russia were petroleum products, 69.5% of the total imports from Japan were cars, and 4.9% of the total imports from China were electricity, 15.2% were trucks and 79.9% were imports of other products. The USD 896.1 million increase in imports from the previous year was mainly due to USD 40.1 million increase in wheat, USD 157.9 million increase in trucks, USD 83.0 million increase in diesel and USD 48.9 million increase in cars.

Exports of mineral products, natural or cultured stones, precious metal, jewelry made up 89.0 percent of the total export. On the other hand, 64.7 percent of the total imports was mineral products, machinery, equipment, electric appliances and its spare parts, transport vehicle and its spare parts and food products.

Source: National Statistics Office of Mongolia

The Ministry of Health has reported today, August 18 that 1,582 new cases of COVID-19 have been detected after conducting tests nationwide within the past 24 hours. More specifically, 452 new cases were detected in the capital city, with 1,130 cases in rural regions.

As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Mongolia now stands at 186,537. In the last 24 hours, 1,879 coronavirus patients made recoveries. Furthermore, five new COVID-19 related deaths has been reported, raising the country’s death toll to 889.

Of the total patients currently undergoing treatment at hospitals, there are 5,294 patients in mild, 3,055 in serious, 848 in critical, and 196 in very critical conditions.

On Aug 18 marks the 200th day since the formation of Mongolia's new government. In connection with this, the “Economy in the midst of the pandemic - Public-Private-Investors Meeting” was held, involving foreign investors and representatives of the international organizations in Mongolia.

During the meeting, Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene announced that the Government of Mongolia is announcing a policy to intensify public-private partnerships, marking the 200th day since the formation of new government.

The government has focused on acceleration of the vaccination rollout in the country in its first 100 days. The PM noted that Mongolia was able to immunize its 62.2 percent of the total population against COVID-19, which currently ranked 14th in the world, thanks to the generous support provided by the partner countries.

It has also been underscored during the meeting that the government's implementation of the ‘MNT 10 trillion Comprehensive Plan for Health Protection and Economic Recovery’ has played a significant role in reviving the economy and protecting the citizens’ health. In particular, as a result of a MNT 320 billion loan to support agriculture under the comprehensive plan, this fall is expected to yield more than the 30-year average. More importantly, the successful implementation of the plan so far helped keep 130 thousand jobs and save 225 thousand others.

It was reported that the following five national committees headed by the Prime Minister will be set up at tomorrow’s cabinet meeting:

National Committee for Intensifying the Economy, Increasing Exports, Supporting Import-Substituting National Production, Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships, and Increasing Investment;

National Committee for Reform to E-Government and Create a Bureaucracy-Free and Competent Public Service;

National Committee for Reducing Road Congestion in Ulaanbaatar, Balancing Urban and Rural Development and Decentralization;

National Committee for Increasing Housing, Establishing a Unified Savings Fund, National Wealth Fund and Expanding the Middle Class;

National Committee for the Promotion of Olympism, Human Development Indicators and Quality of Life;

Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene said, "A sub-working group consisting of investors and representatives of the private sector will be established under the National Committees. It takes time for the public and private sectors to define their coordination. Therefore, national committees are being set up with the aim of creating a system of coordination. In the future, the government will draft a law to revive the economy during the pandemic and submit it to the State Great Khural which is expected to be a great impetus to:

Revitalize the post pandemic economy and increase capacity;

Provide policy support to increase exports and develop domestic import-substituting industries;

Increase foreign and domestic investment and expand the economy;

Intensify further public-private partnerships and create a favorable business environment.”

The Prime Minister stressed that the government plans to establish a Ministry of Economic Development and Planning in 2022 after establishing the aforementioned National Committees and the law to revive the economy.

The prices of Mongolia’s main export products are increasing in the world market. For example, iron ore prices have doubled, copper prices have risen by 50 percent, gold prices by 19 percent and oil prices by 13 percent. He noted that this growth is expected to continue for the next five years and called on investors to take advantage of this period.

Investors and representatives of international organizations expressed readiness to cooperate in agriculture, renewable energy and food production. They expressed support for the Prime Minister's plans to create a legal environment for economic recovery amid the pandemic, digitalize the state procurement and the establishment of the Ministry of Digital Development. They also asked the Prime Minister to hold such meetings more often than once.

According to the statistics, a total of USD 29 billion was invested in Mongolia between 1990 and 2020, and USD 2.5 billion in 2020. During the same period, 15.2 thousand companies were registered, of which 50.2 percent were Chinese companies. In terms of economic sectors, foreign direct investment accounted for 70.2 percent in geology, mining exploration and mining, 16.56 percent in trade and catering, 3.2 percent in banking and finance, and 1.2 percent in transportation and logistics. 1.3 percent was in construction, construction materials and other sectors. Canada accounts for 26.9 percent of total foreign investment, China for 19 percent and the Netherlands for 14.7 percent.

In 2020, due to the pandemic, the amount of foreign investment in the world decreased by 38 percent, while it decreased by 18.5 percent in Mongolia.

The mining industry is falling short on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions enough to limit global warming, even after stepping up efforts to help combat climate change.

Only 11 out of 46 metal and mining companies analyzed by Bloomberg Intelligence have carbon-reduction targets that match levels needed for the United Nations’ goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report.

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The group includes global giants such as Anglo American Plc and Newmont Corp., the world’s largest gold producer.

Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group Ltd and Sweden’s Boliden AB are the leaders of the group, indicating better preparedness for a low-carbon transition and suggesting the best combination of current and forecasted performance on curbing emissions, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s carbon score ranking. The top five companies, based on their overall carbon score, are:

Company Name Overall Score

Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. 9.84

Boliden AB 9.75

Kumba Iron Ore Ltd. 9.73

Newmont Corp. 9.53

BHP Group Ltd. 8.84

Source: Bloomberg

The BI ranking measures the companies on reduction trends, current and future carbon-dioxide intensity, planned cuts and positioning to the end of the decade compared to a temperature-aligned benchmark, using data through April 1. Of the companies analyzed, only Fortescue has set a carbon-neutral target for 2030. Fourteen companies aim to zero out emissions with the target date ranging from 2030 to 2050 as part of a long-term transition.

The mining industry faces increasing scrutiny from investors and regulators demanding greater emphasis on environmental, social and governance issues. Big miners have been working to improve sustainability reports, showing awareness of how hard their business can be hit if they ignore those calls, and a number of producers have set goals to reduce emissions or adopted more ambitious targets in the past couple years.

Related read: UN says IPCC’s climate report “code red for humanity”

Aluminum producers face the highest risks due to carbon-intensive operations, according to the BI report. Those companies need to reduce emissions 49% by 2030, compared to the 20% cutback needed by other diversified and precious metals miners.

“Having carbon-reduction goals is important to aluminum companies because they’re more carbon-intensive than most other metals,” Shaheen Contractor, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said. “That might be why for other miners like precious metal companies, few have set carbon emission goals as of April 1.”

European aluminum companies could see costs of as much as 1.5% of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to 2024, according to the report. A proposal to cut emissions in the European Union 55% by the end of the decade “may mean more headwinds”.

(By Mariana Durao)