Mongolia Uses UN Passenger Data System to Identify Smuggling, Drug Trafficking and Other Border Threats www.hstoday.us

Mongolia’s Passenger Information Unit helped authorities identify suspected smuggling, drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorist financing activity in 2026 as the country expanded its use of passenger data to identify potential threats before travelers reach its borders.

Authorities reported detecting attempted illegal cross-border smuggling valued at approximately MNT 700 billion, or around $200 million, across Mongolia’s border points. The Passenger Information Unit (PIU) also helped identify approximately $10 million in undeclared cash and eight individuals wanted under INTERPOL notices, whose cases were referred to the relevant authorities.

In two separate cases, authorities intercepted over 446 grams of methamphetamine being smuggled into Mongolia. The PIU also supported the identification of attempts to bring unregistered and prohibited medicines into the country concealed in passengers’ carry-on luggage and helped authorities identify a fugitive who had been wanted for 30 years.

The unit was established in December 2023 with support from the United Nations Countering Terrorist Travel Programme.

At the center of Mongolia’s system is the UN-developed goTravel software, which allows the PIU to receive and analyze passenger information supplied by airlines before international flights arrive.

Authorities can use travel routes, patterns and other risk indicators to identify potentially high-risk travelers in advance, while passenger information can also be compared against national and international watchlists. The system facilitates information-sharing among relevant government agencies.

The PIU currently receives passenger data from seven airlines representing around 90% of Mongolia’s international commercial air traffic.

Before the system was introduced, Mongolia used passenger data in a more limited and largely manual process. Automating the collection and analysis of that information allows analysts to spend more time assessing potential risks.

Colonel Adiyajav Enkhtur, Head of Mongolia’s Passenger Information Unit, said the approach is intended to focus resources on potential risks rather than subjecting every traveler to additional checks.

“The primary objective of the Mongolian PIU is not to subject all passengers to additional scrutiny, but rather to identify high-risk passengers in advance through intelligence-led risk assessment and to effectively support the operations of competent and law enforcement authorities,” Enkhtur said.

“API and PNR data enables low-risk passengers to move through border controls quickly and seamlessly, enhancing overall efficiency.”

Mongolia’s PIU operates under safeguards covering privacy, data security and human rights. Access to passenger information is restricted to authorized personnel, records are maintained showing how information is accessed and used, and passenger data can only be processed for specified legal purposes.

Mongolia joined the UN Countering Terrorist Travel Programme in 2020. With support from UN partners, the country subsequently developed legislation governing airline passenger data, established the PIU and deployed the goTravel system.

Mongolia’s legal framework was adopted by Parliament in January 2023, followed by the formal inauguration of the PIU in December of that year. The goTravel system became fully operational in January 2025.

The UN programme has also provided training covering passenger data analysis, risk assessment, privacy protections and use of the goTravel platform. Mongolia is now one of seven beneficiary countries operating the UN-developed system.

Led by the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, the Countering Terrorist Travel Programme assists Member States with using Advance Passenger Information and Passenger Name Record data to detect and prevent terrorism and other serious crimes while maintaining human rights and data protection standards.

Mongolia's lost opportunities from copper www.mongolianminingjournal.com

Twenty copper projects that could generate 4.1 trillion MNT in Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) revenue for the state budget and attract 5.7 trillion MNT in investment have been placed on indefinite hold.

The key to advancing them was a long-awaited amendment to the Minerals Law potentially aligning Mongolia's copper Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) with international standards, by reducing the tax burden. However, during the bill's first reading, Parliament decided to defer the reduction of the copper Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) by three years, with the amendment set now to take effect on January 1, 2029.

The decision reportedly stemmed from the Mongolian People's Party (MPP) caucus in Parliament, which argued that no changes should be made to the copper Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) until a new Investment Agreement is concluded with Entrée Resources, the holder of a mining license at the Oyu Tolgoi deposit.

At a time when global competition for copper investment is intensifying, what will be the consequences of Mongolia retaining its current royalty regime for another three years?

4.14 TRILLION MNT IN ROYALTY REVENUE FROZEN

The projects would have brought copper deposits with geological resources totaling 5.2 million tonnes into production, created 6,986 new jobs, attracted 5.76 trillion MNT in direct investment, and generated 4.14 trillion MNT in Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) revenue for the state budget.

Of the 20 projects, 87.4% of the total geological resources, equivalent to 4.54 million tonnes of copper, were ready to enter production in 2028, with 5.06 trillion MNT already invested. These included major domestic and foreign-funded projects such as Tsagaansuvarga (1.61 million tonnes), Oyut-Ulaan (512.2 thousand tonnes), New Simin Resources (336.9 thousand tonnes), and Oyu Tolgoi (54.7 thousand tonnes).

The projects expected to enter production in 2028 alone were projected to generate 3.6 trillion MNT in Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) revenue and create 3,353 jobs. Meanwhile, the future of seven projects scheduled to enter production in 2030, including those of Marco Polo, Galaxy Mining, and AGM Mining, as well as six additional projects planned for 2032, has also been cast into uncertainty.

Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources' detailed analysis

FLEXIBLE TAXATION

According to the analysis, making the tax system more flexible by aligning the tax burden with international norms, in line with the economic principle of the Laffer Curve, would enable projects to overcome financing bottlenecks and increase Mongolia's copper production by 32% over the next decade.

The increase in actual budget revenue resulting from a more flexible progressive royalty structure is illustrated by the following comparison:

If the current law remains unchanged, Mongolia's copper concentrate production is projected to decline from 2.15 million tonnes in 2026 to 2.01 million tonnes by 2035. By contrast, under the proposed amendments, production would have reached a record 3.32 million tonnes in 2029.

MRR revenue is likewise projected to decline, falling to 1.62 trillion MNT by 2035 if the current law remains unchanged. By contrast, under the proposed amendments, although the royalty rate would be lower, the sharp increase in production volumes would boost MRR revenue to 2.25 trillion MNT in 2029 600 billion MNT more than under the current regime. By 2035, MRR revenue would remain stable at around 1.83 trillion MNT.

Quantitative comparison of how a more flexible royalty rate structure would increase actual budget revenue:

FALLING BEHIND IN GLOBAL COMPETITION

Today, leading copper-producing countries such as Australia, Brazil, and Indonesia maintain stable base Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) rates of between 2% and 5%.

Chile, the global benchmark for the copper industry, overhauled its Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) regime in 2024. Companies producing more than 50,000 tonnes of copper annually are subject to a 1% royalty on gross sales revenue. However, if a company operates at a loss in a given year, it is exempt from paying this 1% royalty. In addition, Chile has adopted a flexible, progressive royalty system under which companies pay an additional 8% to 26%, depending on their operating profit.

Chile has gone a step further by capping the combined burden of corporate income tax, withholding tax, and the Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) at 46.5% of a company's pre-tax profit, providing investors with greater certainty over their future tax obligations.

As a result, Chile generates an additional $1.35 billion in tax revenue each year, of which $450 million is allocated directly to mining regions, local development funds, and infrastructure.

By contrast, Mongolia applies a 5% base Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR), supplemented by a progressive royalty linked to increases in market prices. As a result, the effective royalty rate can rise to as high as 35%. This effectively imposes a royalty burden on international investors that is three to six times higher than that of competing jurisdictions.

The proposed amendments provided that when the market price of copper exceeded $9,000 per tonne, the progressive Mineral Resource Royalty (MRR) on raw ore exports would be reduced from 30% to 15%. The maximum progressive royalty on copper concentrate would similarly reduce from 15% to 5%, while refined copper products would be subject to just 2.5%.

In other words, the proposal used the tax system to discourage the sale of raw ore while providing a clear incentive in the form of MRR relief for domestic producers to manufacture copper concentrate and refined products.

However, with the proposed amendments stalling in Parliament this spring, Mongolia will remain a raw material exporter while retaining, until 2029, a rigid royalty regime that deters investment by imposing a tax burden several times higher than that of competing countries. 

By O.Dulguun

Air China C919 Lands in Mongolia Using Bilateral Airworthiness Workaround www.techtimes.com

Air China flight CA723 — a COMAC C919-100(ER) narrowbody registered B-919Y — touched down at Ulaanbaatar's airport on Wednesday afternoon, completing the aircraft's first-ever scheduled international commercial passenger service. The departure from Beijing Capital International Airport at approximately 3 p.m. local time and the arrival some two hours later were greeted by a water-cannon salute and traditional Mongolian dancers — state media ceremony on its face, but the regulatory mechanism that made the flight legally possible is the more consequential story.

Mongolia's Civil Aviation Authority recognized the Civil Aviation Administration of China's airworthiness standards, allowing C919 operations without Western certification. That bilateral recognition pathway — not EASA or FAA approval — is how COMAC's narrowbody reached its first international destination. The same mechanism was road-tested on a smaller scale from July 2025, when China's C909 regional jet began flying the Hohhot–Ulaanbaatar route, effectively pre-validating that Mongolian aviation authorities would accept Chinese-made aircraft before the far more high-profile C919 followed.

The global system for certifying foreign aircraft has two distinct tracks, and the Mongolia flight operated on the lower-bar one. The FAA bilateral agreements overview explains how this framework functions: under a Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement or Bilateral Airworthiness Agreement between major regulators — the framework governing how EASA validates a Chinese-designed aircraft, for example — the receiving authority runs its own independent technical evaluation of the aircraft's design, reviews flight test data, and may conduct its own test flights before issuing validation.

What Bilateral Airworthiness Recognition Actually Does — and Doesn't Do
That is the process currently underway between EASA and COMAC. EASA Executive Director Florian Guillermet stated in April 2025 that C919 approval would take years — specifically three to six more — placing EASA certification no earlier than 2028 and potentially as late as 2031.

What Mongolia did is different. Mongolia's civil aviation authority recognized CAAC standards directly — effectively saying that if the CAAC has certified an aircraft as airworthy, that determination is accepted in Mongolian airspace without the country conducting its own technical review. That is a much lower threshold, and it is available only to countries that have bilateral civil aviation frameworks recognizing CAAC authority — generally China's neighboring states, Belt and Road partners, and countries without EASA or FAA affiliation. Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who focuses on Chinese business and economics, called it a PR move, noting that Ulaanbaatar was chosen primarily for its proximity to Beijing and that the route "doesn't change the fact that the plane was years overdue, is composed of Western components, and is less efficient than its Boeing and Airbus cousins."

COMAC and Chinese aviation analysts frame the same mechanism more optimistically. Analysts cited by China Business News noted that bilateral recognition shows non-EASA pathways exist for Chinese-made jets to operate internationally. That framing is accurate — but it describes a route into specific markets, not a route into the global aviation market. The countries that can accept C919 flights through bilateral CAAC recognition are a politically and geographically defined subset. Airlines in Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the many Southeast Asian nations that require FAA or EASA certification for foreign aircraft cannot operate the C919 until EASA validation is complete. Malaysia Airlines has been evaluating the C919 and awaits EASA approval before considering adoption.

Why Air China Chose Mongolia — and What Comes Next
The route selection was deliberate on every dimension. The Beijing–Ulaanbaatar approximately 1,378 km sector is a roughly two-hour flight — a roughly two-hour flight that stays well within range of COMAC's existing Chinese maintenance and technical support network, which means the aircraft is never far from home base if a technical issue requires attention.

Air China previously operated a Boeing 737 MAX 8 on the daily service; the C919 replaced a 737 MAX, making this the first documented instance of a Chinese carrier substituting a COMAC-built aircraft for a Western type on a scheduled international revenue route. The daily CA723/CA724 rotation will now give COMAC something it has never had: operational data from international service — turnaround times at a foreign airport, international ground-support requirements, crew handling of immigration and customs coordination for a non-domestically certified aircraft.

COMAC's broader strategy is legible from this step. The C909 regional jet has already been placed with VietJet in Vietnam and Lao Airlines, and COMAC has established regional offices across Southeast Asia in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jakarta. The manufacturer's stated near-term expansion targets are Southeast Asian and Central Asian markets — precisely the non-EASA-affiliated jurisdictions where bilateral recognition of CAAC standards is feasible. Vietnam's civil aviation regulations explicitly list CAAC among the acceptable certification authorities for foreign aircraft imports, alongside FAA, EASA, and a handful of others. Each international bilateral recognition the C919 earns is, in structural terms, one link in a chain that COMAC is building toward the point at which the aircraft's operational track record becomes strong enough to support the EASA validation case.

What the Production Numbers Reveal
The Mongolia milestone lands against a production backdrop that independent analysts describe as deeply misaligned with COMAC's publicly stated ambitions. IBA aviation intelligence forecasts approximately 25 C919-specific deliveries in 2026, rising to roughly 45 in 2027, and potentially reaching 90 per year by 2030. COMAC's own stated targets are dramatically higher: 100 aircraft in 2026, 150 in 2027 and 2028, and 200 per year by 2029, per COMAC's March 2025 conference. The gap between those numbers — IBA's 25 versus COMAC's 100 in 2026 alone — is not a rounding difference. It reflects structural manufacturing constraints that a single ceremonial flight to Ulaanbaatar does not address.

COMAC delivered approximately 15 C919s in 2025 against an initial target of 75. A five-week suspension of U.S. export licenses covering the LEAP-1C engine supply chain in May 2025 disrupted the production schedule before the restriction was lifted in July. That episode demonstrated the program's structural dependence on American components: the LEAP-1C is a joint product of GE Aerospace and France's Safran, and its export to China is subject to U.S. Department of Commerce licensing. China's Aero Engine Corporation of China (AECC) is developing a domestic replacement, the CJ-1000A, but AECC's domestic engine certification is not expected before 2027 and meaningful production not until around 2030. The CJ-1000A program remains years from production readiness.

For context on scale: Airbus planned approximately 700 total A320-family deliveries in 2026. IBA's 2026 narrowbody forecast for Boeing stands at roughly 510 737 MAX jets annually. IBA forecasts that even at its 2030 peak, the C919 will constitute only approximately 2% of the global narrowbody fleet, with about 65% of new narrowbody deliveries to Chinese operators. Globally, COMAC remains a niche participant.

Performance Gap: C919 vs. Its Western Rivals
Even inside China, where the C919 operates under favorable conditions and with full government support, C919 utilization trails Western rivals. As of mid-2025, C919s averaged 5.9 flight hours per day — compared to 8.1 hours for Boeing 737 MAX aircraft and 8.4 hours for Airbus A320neo jets operating in China. That utilization gap — roughly 30% below the aircraft's direct competitors on their home turf — reflects both the immaturity of the C919's maintenance network and the caution Chinese carriers are exercising while accumulating operational confidence in a new platform. That gap matters because it is what an airline's finance team evaluates when it models the true per-seat operating cost of an aircraft: a jet that flies fewer hours per day generates proportionally less revenue against the same fixed ownership cost.

Range is a separate structural limitation. The C919 carries far less fuel than the Airbus A320neo — approximately 6,000 liters — translating to a range of up to 5,555 km (3,452 miles) versus the A320neo's approximately 6,300 km (3,915 miles) in standard configuration. On medium-haul routes that the A320neo handles comfortably, the C919 operates closer to its design ceiling.

On capacity, the C919 seats 158 to 174 passengers depending on configuration — comparable to the smaller A319neo rather than the A320neo (typically 150-194 passengers), which can limit its economics on high-density routes.

No independent third-party dispatch reliability audit of the C919 has been published as of August 2026. The only non-official reliability signal in the record is an unauthenticated complaint letter reportedly from China Southern's engineering division, dated May 2026, which alleged multiple technical defects including oil leaks, fire detection issues, and anti-icing valve failures on newly delivered aircraft. China Southern completed its first C-check of a C919 in late May 2026 with Chinese official media reporting all data compliant; no CAAC airworthiness directives have been issued.

State Ownership, Legal Obligations, and What That Means Internationally
COMAC is a Chinese state-owned enterprise controlled by the PRC government through SASAC and the Ministry of Finance.

That ownership structure has two consequences for international operators considering the C919. The first is strategic: COMAC's production priorities, technology roadmap, and partner decisions are subject to government direction. China's 14th Five-Year Plan explicitly listed C919 output and supply-chain resilience as national strategic priorities. The state that mandates Chinese carriers to fly domestic aircraft on certain routes also sets COMAC's agenda.

The second consequence is legal. Under China's National Intelligence Law (2017), Article 7, all organizations and citizens — including state-owned enterprises — must support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts and protect the secrets of that work. The Data Security Law (2021) similarly requires PRC entities to obtain government approval before providing data stored in China to foreign judicial or law enforcement institutions. These obligations apply to COMAC as a PRC entity regardless of where its aircraft operate, what data its aircraft systems generate, or what agreements it signs with foreign carriers. International airlines deploying the C919 on overseas routes should understand that any data flowing through COMAC-linked systems — maintenance telemetry, operational parameters — falls within the scope of these legal frameworks. This is structurally different from the risk posed by a commercial software vendor; it is the legal condition of purchasing infrastructure from a company that operates under the PRC's intelligence cooperation mandate.

Weighing the Decision to Fly or Order C919
For airlines in China's geographic and diplomatic neighborhood evaluating whether to fly or order the C919, today's Mongolia flight changes the calculus at the margins — one more data point in a still-thin operational record.

The case for the aircraft: government-backed pricing, available delivery slots in a market where Airbus and Boeing backlogs stretch years into the future, and a strategic alignment with China's economic relationships that certain carriers actively value. AirAsia has confirmed active negotiations with COMAC; Vietnam's VietJet has already taken C909 deliveries. For those airlines, the C919 is less a gamble on a new manufacturer than an extension of an existing supplier relationship.

The case against: EASA certification will not arrive before 2028 at the absolute earliest and could stretch to 2031, which means any airline operating the C919 cannot deploy it on routes to Europe or most of the developed world. The aircraft's operational metrics remain well below its Western competitors on their home turf. The supply chain has already demonstrated its vulnerability to American export control decisions. And independent maintenance, reliability, and fuel-burn data — the numbers airlines actually use to model fleet economics — remain almost entirely absent from the public record.

Zhang Yanzhong, an aviation expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering who worked on the C919, acknowledged in a recent interview with Chinese state media that dependence on foreign aircraft technology would threaten China's national strategic security — while also noting there remains "a long path ahead" before the C919 achieves genuine commercial success on the global stage. That assessment, from inside the program, is the most honest summary of where the aircraft stands.

The water-cannon salute in Ulaanbaatar was real. So was the regulatory workaround that made it possible — and so are the structural constraints that define how far that workaround can reach.

Frequently Asked Questions
Can the C919 fly to international destinations without EASA or FAA certification?
Yes — but only to countries whose aviation authorities recognize China's CAAC airworthiness standards through bilateral agreements. Mongolia is the first such international destination for scheduled commercial service. Countries that follow EASA standards (most of Europe, many in Asia and the Middle East) or require FAA certification cannot admit the C919 for commercial passenger service until EASA completes its validation of the CAAC type certificate. EASA's timeline for C919 approval runs no earlier than 2028 and possibly as late as 2031. The bilateral recognition pathway is real but geographically limited to non-Western-aligned aviation authorities.

Why did Air China choose Mongolia for this first international route?
Mongolia was selected for practical and strategic reasons. The route from Beijing is approximately 1,378 km (857 miles) — a two-hour sector near Chinese maintenance support infrastructure. Mongolia had already allowed China's smaller C909 regional jet to operate the Hohhot–Ulaanbaatar route from July 2025, pre-validating the CAAC recognition pathway. Scott Kennedy of CSIS called the choice a PR move given Ulaanbaatar's proximity to Beijing.

How many C919s has COMAC actually delivered, and how far is that from its targets?
As of mid-2026, approximately 40 C919s had been delivered cumulatively — roughly 32 through the end of 2025 and 8 more in the first half of 2026, per Euronews C919 delivery tracking. COMAC's stated target for 2026 alone is 100 aircraft. Independent aviation advisory firm IBA forecasts 25 C919 deliveries in 2026, rising to around 45 in 2027. The production gap reflects both manufacturing scale-up challenges and the demonstrated vulnerability of the LEAP-1C engine supply to U.S. export control decisions — which disrupted production for roughly five weeks in mid-2025.

What legal obligations apply to COMAC as a Chinese state-owned enterprise, and why does that matter for international operators?
As a PRC state-owned enterprise, COMAC is subject to China's National Intelligence Law (2017), which requires all organizations to support and cooperate with national intelligence work, and the Data Security Law (2021), which governs how data stored in China can be shared with or withheld from foreign entities. These obligations apply regardless of where COMAC's aircraft operate or what commercial agreements the company signs. International airlines or airport operators using COMAC's maintenance and operational systems should seek legal guidance on what data handling obligations they inherit when deploying aircraft from a PRC state enterprise.

43,000 passenger cars imported in the first half of 2026 www.gogo.mn

In the first half of this year, Mongolia traded with 150 countries, with total foreign trade turnover reaching USD 16.5 billion. Exports amounted to USD 10.4 billion, while imports totaled USD 6.1 billion, resulting in a surplus of USD 4.3 billion.

In 2015-2025, Mongolia imported 720,000 passenger cars, 210,000 trucks, and more than 15,000 public transport vehicles.

In the first half of 2026 alone, 43,000 passenger cars, 10,000 trucks, and 615 public transport vehicles were imported.

Passenger cars accounted for 76.3% of Mongolia’s imports from Japan, while trucks accounted for 5.7% of imports from China.

Total imports increased by 10.6%, or USD 588.1 million, compared with the same period last year.

Oil Refinery Construction to be Intensified and Legislative Bottlenecks Removed www.montsame.mn

At its regular Cabinet meeting, ministers discussed fuel supplies from the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea, as well as pressing challenges facing the construction of the Oil Refinery in Altanshiree soum, Dornogobi aimag, on August 12, 2026. Directives were subsequently issued to ministers to eliminate legal and regulatory bottlenecks.

Specifically, the Cabinet resolved 14 key issues, agreeing to monitor implementation weekly. Key measures include:

Resolving relations regarding the refinery's tax and debt obligations and increasing its credit line and amount;
Developing the project as an industrial and technological park to ensure smooth and accelerated operations;
Placing the construction site and refinery premises under the protection of the Internal Troops;
Tasking the Minister of Economy and Development and the Minister of Education with formulating plans and estimates to train and specialize refinery personnel;
Providing the public with accurate information;
Expediting official responses to permit requests and documentation submitted by the refinery.
Additionally, the Cabinet heard a report on the progress of constructing fuel storage facilities to establish a 23-day reserve. To support this effort, the Bank of Mongolia has issued over MNT 360 billion in loans for 26 projects across 21 enterprises.

According to the Media and Public Relations Department of the Parliament of Mongolia, the Prime Minister directed relevant officials to refrain from bureaucratic inaction or delaying required paperwork, ensure timely decisions on project financing, facilitate the prompt handover of completed projects to the State Commission, and strictly enforce applicable standards.

Ten Years of 'Hunnu Rock': The Hu Launches New World Tour www.montsame.mn

Global folk-metal sensation The Hu celebrated a decade of international success with a massive homecoming concert in Ulaanbaatar, launching their 2026 world tour before thousands of fans at Central Stadium.

The August 8 "Wolf Totem World Premiere" concert marked both the band’s 10th anniversary and the official opening chapter of their next era. Performing on a custom stage built with intricate lighting production, the group used the landmark show to preview what lies ahead for their global audience.

Founded in Ulaanbaatar in 2016, The Hu pioneered a distinct style dubbed "Hunnu rock." The music blends heavy modern rock riffs with traditional Mongol instruments like the morin khuur (horse-head fiddle) and tumur khuur (jaw harp) alongside the throat-singing techniques such as khuumii and kharkhiraa.

Singing exclusively in Mongolian, the band rapidly built a global fan base. They became the first Mongolian band to top U.S. Billboard charts and score a hit on the UK Top 100 Singles chart. To date, their tracks have amassed nearly 900 million streams worldwide across digital platforms.

The group’s footprint extends deep into mainstream global culture. They contributed original music to the hit video games Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. The latter earning a Grammy nomination for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. They also covered Metallica's "Through the Never" for The Metallica Blacklist project, toured as special guests for Iron Maiden, and played major festival stages including Coachella and Glastonbury.

In recognition of their global reach, the government designated the band as official Cultural Envoys and awarded them the state supreme decoration of Mongolia, the Order of Chinggis Khaan, in 2019. During the award ceremony, state officials commended their debut album, The Gereg, for bringing Mongol heritage to international audiences in the spirit of the diplomatic passports issued under Chinggis Khaan.

Upcoming UK Tour Dates

As part of their 2026 world tour, "The Hu" plans to hold a series of concerts in the UK titled "Warrior Chant." The tour will begin on September 29 at the O2 Academy in Glasgow and conclude on October 11 at UEA in Norwich.

The tour schedule includes the following cities:

-September 29: Glasgow, O2 Academy

-October 1: Bristol, Prospect Building

-October 2: Bournemouth, O2 Academy

-October 3: Newcastle, O2 City Hall

-October 5: Belfast, The Telegraph

-October 8: Birmingham, O2 Academy

-October 9: London, O2 Academy Brixton

-October 10: Manchester, O2 Apollo

-October 11: Norwich, UEA

The French band SKÁLD will join "The Hu" on this tour. This marks the Hu's first UK tour since performing at the Glastonbury Festival in the summer of 2023, a recording of which they released as a live album in 2024.

The great poet Yavuukhulan Begz once wrote, "My steed, my poetry - you and I need the world's stage." This was a heartfelt anthem by the great poet who sang of traditional nomadic life, recognizing his own standing and where he ought to reach. Now, having triumphantly reached that world stage and concluded a decade with the roaring chants of "Hu, Hu, Hu" from their fans, the countdown to a new decade for the Hu has officially begun. How will they amaze us and the world?

National AI Council Established to Drive Digital Economy www.montsame.mn

The Cabinet has resolved to establish the "National AI Council" by amending Cabinet Resolution No. 21 "On Re-approving the Composition of Government National Committees, Commissions, and National Councils."

Mongolia has outlined more than 30 initiatives related to big data and artificial intelligence in its "Vision-2050" long-term development policy document and the Government Action Program for 2024–2028. However, in the 2024 Government AI Readiness Index published annually by Oxford Insights, Mongolia ranked 98th out of 188 countries, receiving a score of "0" on whether the country possesses strategic planning and policy documents. This highlights the urgent need to formulate a national-level AI strategy.

The establishment of the Council will create opportunities to integrate AI-driven initiatives across all sectors, export AI products and services, and accelerate the growth of the digital economy. Uchral Nyam-Osor, Prime Minister of Mongolia, will head the Council, while the Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications and the Minister of Education will serve as Vice Chairs.

Council members will comprise the Deputy Minister of Finance, the Deputy Minister of Economy and Development, and State Secretaries of other ministries, alongside representatives from national AI professional associations participating based on their interest.

Specifically, participating members by agreement include the Board Chairman and members of the "National AI Professional Council" NGO, the Chief Technology Officer of Mogul Group, the Chief Executive Officer of Black Labs, the Director of the Chief Information Officers Club, and the Chief Operating Officer of Voyageur AI.

The Magic of Mongolia: Why people visit the most sparsely populated country in the world www.jacksflightclub.com

The 2020s are definitely shaping up to be the era of Central Asian tourism. Post-pandemic trends have travelers finally appreciating the region’s vast untouched landscapes, nomadic cultures, and (most importantly) lack of crowds. Turns out there’s something about surviving a global virus that makes people really want to get away from each other and disappear into the scenery! 

Result? The “Stans” have exploded in popularity over the last few years. Folks who never once thought about Kazakhstan before 2020 are suddenly clambering to traverse those grasslands on horseback. A few of Jack’s own writers went to Kyrgyzstan last year to see it for themselves, and it did not disappoint.

But head further east, and you find a country that’s even more spacious, even more off the grid, and even less crowded.

A serene view of Mongolia's vast grasslands stretches under a cloudy sky, with distant snow-capped mountains on the horizon.
Remote and rugged, Mongolia isn’t exactly a “beginner-friendly” destination — even by Central Asian standards. This is the most sparsely inhabited country in the entire world, with a population smaller than Berlin’s spread out over a nation double the size of Turkey. Show up ill-prepared, and you might find yourself stranded hundreds of miles from civilization, surrounded by nothing but an endless sea of steppe. 

In spite of those challenges (or perhaps because of them), Mongolian tourism is still climbing. Its growth might be dwarfed by the Stans, but it’s been booming for the first half of 2026. This might be the first year the country cracks one million visitors!

So… what are all those visitors doing in Mongolia? What’s it like to experience a country where 99% of the land is void of people? 

Contrary to what you might think, it usually starts off a little chaotic. In order to reach the tranquility of the open grasslands, you’ll first need to brave Ulaanbaatar. The country's capital and only major urban center is a sprawling, mazelike metropolis that houses half the Mongolian population. It's confusing and hectic and definitely not set up for tourists, but as a dense cultural melting pot of a city, it rewards those who are willing to dig. 

Ulaanbaatar cityscape unfolds with a backdrop of rolling green hills under a sky dotted with cumulus clouds.
You'll spot Buddhist temples next to Soviet housing blocks next to Irish pubs. You can take selfies with statues of both Genghis Khan and Paul McCartney. Museums range from the typical fine art and natural history fare to quiet dirt lots dotted with shamanic offerings.

And then there’s the nightlife scene. The crazy, vibrant nightlife scene. Packing half your population into the coldest capital city on Earth is a surefire way to produce a next-level bar and club culture. Spots like ZÜ are said to get pretty wild, but you can find anything from laid-back dives to upscale cocktail lounges. 

But despite its twists and turns, most people don’t visit Mongolia for the capital. It’s hard to remember when you’re lost in the labyrinth of Ulaanbaatar, but this is the most sparsely populated country in the world, remember?

Time to get our steppes in!

A van traverses the vast grasslands of the Mongolian steppe under a cloudy sky.
Mongolia has almost zero infrastructure outside the city, so this isn’t really a place for wandering aimlessly. Traversing those vast landscapes definitely requires a gameplan.

The simplest option is to hop aboard the Mongolian branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway — the train stops right in Ulaanbaatar. From there you'll head across the eastern half of the country and into Beijing, passing through miles of grassy steppe, the Gobi desert, and the Great Wall of China along the way. 

Three camels traverse the Gobi Desert's sandy expanse under a clear sky.
A once-in-a-lifetime set of views, to be sure, but folks who choose this method won’t get the full effect of Mongolia’s majesty. For that, you’ll need to dig a little deeper.

While it might be tempting to grab your rental car and disappear into the wilderness by yourself, remember that you’ll be dealing with rough terrain and a total lack of services. A dashboard light turning on could quite literally signal your death. Because of these constraints, planning a trip to Mongolia tends to be about booking a tour.

That’s not as easy as it sounds — there are tons of options online, but getting a booking confirmed can be an obstacle. A lot of companies won’t take you unless they have enough guests to justify the journey, so you’ll often have better luck if you collect your own group of intrepid travelers (usually around 5-6 total) before trying to book. It can also be easier (and cheaper) to book in person, so some folks either ask their accommodations to do it for them or spend some time in Ulaanbaatar hunting for a tour.

Golden sand dunes with intricate patterns overlook the serene waters of Khyargas Lake in Mongolia, framed by distant rolling hills.
As with any tour across a country this size, you’ll also have options on which region you want to explore. The most popular are Central Mongolia (closer to the city, full of steppes and ancient ruins, THE classic “Mongolia scenery”) and the Gobi Desert (camels, dunes, the works). Other areas have woodlands, massive sparkling lakes, or rocky mountains. Longer tours will take you through multiple regions, whereas the simpler, shorter tours might just take you out into the steppe for a few days.

Let’s say you’ve gotten your tour confirmed, and you’re heading out tomorrow. For most folks, that means packing into an all-terrain vehicle bright and early in the morning, but some tours offer travel by horse, camel, or motorcycle. 

A cluster of yurts nestled in the Altai Mountains in Mongolia.
Whatever locomotion you’re using, you'll most likely be staying in yurts called ger camps. This is where you’ll start to feel that “miles off the grid” sensation — totally cut off from the rest of the world, it’s just you, your group, and the local hunters and nomads taking care of you. While there’s not exactly a lot of amenities at most of these camps (midnight bathroom runs might involve carrying a lantern to a quiet spot in the field), you’ll have a bed and plenty of hearty Mongolian meals.

Mongolian hunter
When you’re not asleep in your yurt, you’ll be experiencing some of the most remote, unique cultures in the world and witnessing natural landscapes that only a tiny percentage of humanity will ever see. Maybe you’ll watch wild horses gallop across the grasslands. Maybe you’ll see the local hunters compete with trained eagles, or trek the taiga with nomadic reindeer herders, or hike to isolated monasteries in the desert.

When all is said and done, you’ll be taken back to Ulaanbaatar. The urban chaos will feel even louder now, but this time you’ll be able to crawl back into your memory of those quiet nights under the Milky Way, listening to the wind blow through the grass. 

BY Olivia Louden
A San Diego native, Olivia left home three years ago to live on the road. Since then, she's had homebases everywhere from Quebec to England to New Orleans, but she always ends up back on the West Coast. When she's not hiking through the desert or the woods, she can usually be found exploring her current city and scoping out the best bars and coffee shops.

The Most Expensive Mistake Mongolian Companies Keep Making And Calling It a Hiring Decision (BLOG) www.lambda.global

A bad hire costs up to 30% of that employee’s first-year salary. In a market where senior management earns 4.37 million MNT per month, that number gets large very fast. Organizations are absorbing this cost constantly, and almost none of them are measuring it. Here is a number that most companies do not know about […]

The Most Expensive Mistake Mongolian Companies Keep Making And Calling It a Hiring Decision.
A bad hire costs up to 30% of that employee’s first-year salary. In a market where senior management earns 4.37 million MNT per month, that number gets large very fast. Organizations are absorbing this cost constantly, and almost none of them are measuring it.

Here is a number that most companies do not know about their own operations: the precise cost of the last person they hired who did not work out. Not the salary paid during the tenure. Not just the recruitment fee. The full number, including the management time absorbed, the productivity lost by the team around them, the clients or projects disrupted, the morale damage, the cost of starting the search again, and the salary of the replacement hire, layered on top of all of it.

Almost no Mongolian organization tracks this figure. Almost every Mongolian organization is paying it.

The global research on bad hires is unambiguous: a poor hiring decision costs between 30% and 150% of the employee’s annual salary, depending on seniority and how long the situation persists before action is taken. For a mid-level manager in Mongolia earning 3 million MNT per month, a failed hire that lasts eight months before being resolved carries a total organizational cost, visible and invisible, of anywhere between 10 and 36 million MNT. For a C-suite appointment that does not work out after a year, the number is multiples of that. These are not edge cases. They are the ordinary, recurring consequence of a hiring process that most Mongolian companies still treat as less important than the decisions the hire will be making.

What a Bad Hire Actually Costs – Beyond the Obvious

The direct costs of a failed hire are the ones organizations notice: recruitment spend, salary paid, and, where applicable, severance. These are real, and in a market where executive search fees for senior roles can run 15 to 20% of annual compensation, they are significant. A CFO placed at a 100 million MNT annual package carries a search fee alone of 15 to 20 million MNT. If that hire fails within twelve months, the organization pays that fee again on the replacement search.

But the indirect costs are where the real damage accumulates and where Mongolian organizations consistently underestimate their exposure.

42 days average time a position sits open globally after a vacancy occurs during which productivity loss begins immediately (SHRM, 2024)

Lost productivity is the first and largest invisible cost. A new hire reaches full productivity on average within six to eight months. During that period, the organization is paying full salary for partial output. If the hire is wrong, if the skills, the cultural fit, or the judgment are not what the interview process suggested, that productivity deficit extends indefinitely, while the cost of addressing it grows with every week of delay. In Mongolia’s competitive sectors, where teams are lean and individual contribution is high-leverage, a single underperforming hire in a senior role can slow a department’s entire output for a quarter or more.

Team morale is the second cost, and the hardest to quantify. When a hire is visibly wrong, when a team can see that a manager lacks competence, that a senior professional is not pulling their weight, that a leader is creating friction rather than removing it, the people around that hire absorb the consequences daily. They pick up the slack. They work around the dysfunction. They start, quietly, to reassess whether an organization that makes decisions like this is one they want to stay in. In a market where, globally, 51% of employees are actively watching or seeking new jobs, the ripple effect of a bad hire on the people already in place is not a soft risk. It is a hard one.

A Mongolian logistics company hired a regional operations director through an informal referral in 2023. Within four months, three of his direct reports had handed in resignations, citing management style. The company replaced the director eight months into his tenure. Total estimated cost, including the three replacement hires and the projects delayed during the transition approximately 85 million MNT. The original search had cost nothing; the hire came through a contact. The lesson was more expensive than any search fee would have been.

Why It Keeps Happening

Mongolia’s bad hire problem is not primarily a competency problem. It is a process problem. Specifically, it is the result of three consistent failures that appear, with remarkable regularity, in how Mongolian organizations approach senior and mid-senior appointments.

The first is speed, pressure overriding rigor. When a role becomes vacant, the organization feels the operational gap immediately, and the impulse is to fill it as quickly as possible. Timelines compress. Reference checks become cursory. The structured evaluation that would identify a misalignment between the candidate’s actual capabilities and the role’s real demands gets skipped or shortened. The hire is made. The problem that was visible in a proper assessment process emerges six months later at considerably greater cost.

The second is over-reliance on the interview performance. Mongolia’s hiring culture places significant weight on the interview as the primary evaluation mechanism. A candidate who presents well, who is articulate, who knows the right things to say about strategy and leadership, who has the right institutional affiliations, can move through a Mongolian hiring process with very little scrutiny of whether they have actually done what they are claiming to have done. Structured reference conversations, practical assessments, and competency-based evaluation frameworks are still not standard practice across most Mongolian organizations. The interview room rewards performance, not necessarily performance in the role.

The third is the most culturally specific, the connection override. A referral from within the network of a board member or a senior executive carries an informal authority that often bypasses evaluation entirely. The hire is made because of who vouches for them, not what an independent assessment reveals. In a small professional community like Ulaanbaatar’s, this mechanism is understandable. It is also statistically the source of a disproportionate share of the bad hires that are most damaging, because the relationship layer that enabled the hire also makes it harder to address when the hire fails.

What Structured Hiring Actually Prevents

The case for structured executive search is frequently made on the grounds of candidate quality, finding a better person for the role. That case is true but incomplete. The more precise argument is that structured search prevents specific, calculable categories of organizational cost that informal hiring consistently produces.

A properly run search process for a senior role includes a thorough role definition before any candidate is evaluated, a step that, in informal hiring, rarely happens. Organizations that skip this step often discover, three months into a hire, that the role they described to the candidate was not actually the role they needed filled. The resulting misalignment is not the candidate’s fault. It is a design failure that a structured process would have caught.

It includes independent reference conversations that go beyond the references the candidate provides, conversations with people who have managed, worked alongside, or been managed by the candidate, conducted by someone with no stake in validating the hire. It includes competency-based evaluation against criteria defined before any name is attached to the process. And it includes a candidate pool that extends beyond the organization’s existing network, which is the only mechanism that guarantees the best available person is being considered, rather than the most available known person.

30% minimum cost of a failed hire as a percentage of first-year salary rising to 150% for senior roles (SHRM/Wellhub, 2025)

XacBank’s adoption of psychometric and cognitive assessments as part of its interview process is one of the more sophisticated hiring practices visible among Mongolian financial institutions, which reflects an understanding that interview performance is not a sufficient proxy for role performance. Organizations that have invested in more rigorous evaluation are not just finding better candidates. They are avoiding the cost of the wrong ones.

The Calculation Every Mongolian CEO Should Run

Before the next senior hire, consider running the actual numbers. Take the monthly salary of the role. Multiply by twelve. Take 30% of that figure as the floor cost of a failed hire, recognizing that for senior roles and extended bad-hire situations, the real number is considerably higher. Add the search fee for the replacement hire. Add a rough estimate of the management time and productivity loss your team will absorb if the hire is wrong. Compare that total to the cost of a properly structured search process that reduces the probability of that outcome.

In almost every case, the math is not close. The cost of getting it wrong dwarfs the cost of getting it right. The question is not whether Mongolian organizations can afford structured, rigorous hiring. It is whether they can afford to keep doing without it.

Lambda. Global’s executive search practice is built on precisely this premise. In a market of 1.2 million active workers with a projected shortfall of 240,000 by 2035, the organizations that will have the strongest leadership teams in five years are the ones making the best hiring decisions right now, not the fastest ones.

SOURCES & REFERENCES

1.  Wellhub – Cost Per Hire: Averages, Deciding Factors, and How to Calculate (2025)

Bad hire costs up to 30% of first-year salary; hidden costs include lost productivity, morale impact, and repeat recruitment spend.

https://wellhub.com/en-us/blog/talent-acquisition-and-retention/cost-of-hire
2.  Spark Hire – The Real Cost of Employee Turnover (January 2025)

42-day average to fill open position (SHRM 2024); 6-8 months to full productivity; culture and morale impact of turnover.

https://www.sparkhire.com/learn/screen-candidates/the-cost-of-employee-turnover
3.  High5Test – US Employee Turnover Statistics 2024–2025

51% of employees are watching or seeking new jobs; engagement and culture top reasons for leaving (37%); turnover cost frameworks.

20+ U.S. Employee Turnover Statistics (2024-2025)
4.  9CV9 Blog – How to Find and Hire Employees in Mongolia in 2025

Rise in employee turnover in mining and IT; XacBank psychometric assessment practice; long-term aspiration screening approaches.

How to Find and Hire Employees in Mongolia in 2025
5.  9CV9 Blog – State of Recruitment and Hiring in Mongolia 2025

83,700 new hires projected for 2025; senior management avg 4.37M MNT/month; 1.2M active workforce; 240,000 shortfall by 2035.

The State of Recruitment and Hiring in Mongolia in 2025
6.  Rivermate – Recruitment in Mongolia (February 2026)

Poor hiring decisions linked to turnover and productivity loss; salary variation by industry, experience, and location in Mongolia.

https://www.rivermate.com/guides/mongolia/recruitment

Mongolia Successfully Tests Intercity Freight Transport with Heavy Electric Trucks for the First Time www.open.kg

Mongolia continues the active implementation of the government program "Liberate" (Чөлөөлье), especially within the framework of the "Green Hub" (Ногоон өртөө) initiative. The companies "Monlogistics Group" and "Newcom" recently conducted successful tests, becoming the first in the country to carry out long-distance freight transport using a fully electric heavy-duty truck. This event took place from August 7 to 9, 2026, when the electric truck covered the route Ulaanbaatar – Zamyn-Uud – Ulaanbaatar, with a total length of about 1400 kilometers.

Technical Specifications and Environmental Impact

Equipment used: The tests involved a modern electric tractor with a high-capacity lithium iron phosphate battery.

Payload capacity: The total weight of the truck and trailer was 40 tons, with a useful payload capacity of up to 25 tons, which meets the standards for commercial freight transport.

Reduction of CO₂ emissions: Replacing a diesel truck with an electric one avoids the emission of about 1.2–1.5 tons of carbon dioxide per trip. With regular transport, this can lead to significant savings in harmful emissions amounting to hundreds of tons per year.

Economic benefit: The electricity consumption per kilometer was significantly lower than the cost of diesel fuel, highlighting the feasibility of transitioning to the electrification of the commercial vehicle fleet.

The electrification of the transport sector is becoming particularly important against the backdrop of price instability for traditional fuels. Such measures will help reduce the country's dependence on imported fuels and lubricants and stabilize transportation costs.

We thank the teams at "Monlogistics Group" and "Newcom" for their initiative, courage in testing new technologies, and successful adaptation to the local conditions of Mongolia.