The export income of 2.3 million tons of coal totaled USD 190 million and the Customs organization accumulated MNT 3.53 billion to the State budget.

In this light, the Deputy Governor of Khovd aimag, Chairman of the Energy Regulatory Commission of the aimag T.Jargalsaikhan, and Head of the Governor’s Office of Khovd aimag D.Enkhbold received the delegates of LOOP LLC last week, where the authorities of Khovd aimag expressed that the aimag is ready to fully support the construction work of new renewable energy project.

LOOP LLC of Japan is an experienced company which is running sustainable operation in the renewable energy sector in recent years. Since 2011, the company has constructed more than 2000 solar power plants with a capacity of 250 MW.

As of today, two out of three people actively use and engage on the internet in Mongolia. In two decades, the number of internet users skyrocketed with about 4400 times growth, to 2.2 million as of April 2018 according to a social media management platform Hootsuite. It became hard to find Mongolians that do not engage in social media. Obviously, the market will never ignore such an opportune trend as we see multiple social media-based businesses nowadays. However, businesses and commercial services on social media remain disorganized and unregulated in Mongolia.

Shopping on social media, which attracts the highest number of internet users, is still no better than a black market for Mongolians. A clear example is the numerous advertisement groups with thousands of members. People are selling products with different prices and no quality assurance on social media, victimizing consumers. There were some instances where people got deceived by fake accounts when making purchases for the Lunar New Year.

E-commerce development in other countries is mostly based on independent platforms. The situation is different for Mongolia as the consumption is mostly directed towards social media platforms. But this part of e-shopping is still foreign for Mongolians. Not only does the country lacks a decent service provider, but the public also does not have the desire to seek one.

Analysts are predicting 99 percent of global shopping to shift to e-commerce by 2030. It is questionable if Mongolia could adapt to such a mindset within just one decade. In order for e-commerce to flourish in Mongolia, experts suggest developing the infrastructure, such as delivery service and urbanization.

E-commerce is important especially for a land-locked country. The country may not fall behindin terms of internet speed and consumption, but the usage notably differs from other countries.

This is the same Brazilian state where a tailings dam breach killed at least 166 people in late January and where over a hundred people are still missing.

According to Vale, the decision to evacuate the town was made following the escalation to Level 2 of the Emergency Action Plan for Mining Dams for the B3/B4 dam at Mar Azul. The climb in the alert system was prompted after company experts reviewed data from analysis reports provided to them by specialized advisory firms.

The facility at the iron ore mine, however, is inactive so the miner said the exit measure is precautionary.

The company also said that the evacuees are being assisted and registered at a community centre, where they will receive additional information and support until the situation stabilizes. They will also be placed in hotels in the region.

On February 8, some 700 people were evacuated as well in Minas Gerais due to the risk of another tailings pond failure. Of those, 500 people were asked to flee a rural town near Vale’s Gongo Soco mine’s dam, while a 200-person community situated downstream of ArcelorMittal’s dormant Serra Azul tailing dam was also relocated.

Mining dams are coming under increasing scrutiny and vigilance both from companies and authorities in Brazil following the collapse at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine in Brumadinho last month, the second such incident involving the same company in about three years.

This most recent accident prompted the arrest of 13 Vale employees, including two executives and two engineers working on behalf of the company, as well as four people from the German consulting group Tüv Süd, which certified the safety of the dam that collapsed.

Modern Mongolians are big on dairy, milking seven different animal species, including cows, yaks and camels. But how far into the past that dairying tradition extends is difficult to glean from the usual archaeological evidence: Nomadic lifestyles mean no kitchen trash heaps preserving ancient pots with lingering traces of milk fats. So molecular anthropologist Christina Warinner and her colleagues turned to the skeletons found in 22 burial mounds belonging to the Deer Stone culture, a people who lived in Mongolia’s eastern steppes around about 1300 B.C.

The hardened dental plaque, or tartar, on the teeth of the skeletons contained traces of milk proteins, Warinner, of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, said February 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Those proteins showed that the people drank milk from cows, yaks, goats and sheep, but not from camels or reindeer, which modern day Mongolians milk today.
Ancient Mongolians’ DNA also revealed that they weren’t able to digest lactose as adults. Instead, the Deer Stone people, like modern Mongolians, may have relied on bacteria within the gut, known as the gut microbiome, to break down the lactose, Warinner said.

Warinner’s team had first detected milk proteins in the tooth tartar of European Bronze Age skeletons dating back to 3000 B.C. (SN: 10/14/17; p. 18). The hardened plaque preserves tiny evidence of all sorts of events in a person’s lifetime, from drinking milk to inhaling pollen to working in a dusty artistic working environment (SN: 2/2/19, p. 14).

"The China-Europe freight rail service network is a crucial part of China's Belt and Road Initiative. We believe that the service is a 'realistic step' that supports the development of trade and economy of countries along the Belt and Road," Tuvshintugs Battsetseg, deputy director of the Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, told Xinhua.

"We are happy that the number of the China-Europe freight trains via Mongolia has been dramatically increasing year by year. As the service expands, its contribution to the Mongolian economy has been increasing," Battsetseg said.

There were 556 China-Europe freight trains traveling through Mongolia in 2017 and the number reached 856 in 2018, according to the official.

"Our country's relevant departments, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Road and Transport Development, have been paying special attention to creating favorable conditions for China-Europe freight trains for traveling through the Mongolian territory without any obstacles," she said.

Equilibrated revenue and grants of the General Government Budget increased by MNT 160.2 billion or 30.2 percent and total expenditure and net lending by MNT 142.0 billion or 34.1 percent from the same period previous year.

Tax revenue reached MNT 626.3 billion, increased by MNT 157.7 billion or 33.7 percent compared with the same period of the previous year. This growth was mainly affected by increases of MNT 47.6 billion or 76.2 percent in other tax, MNT 42.6 billion or 54.1 percent in value added taxes, MNT 26.9 billion or 43.1 percent excise taxes, MNT 24.5 billion or 24.2 percent in social security revenue, MNT 17.5 billion or 43.3 percent in revenue of foreign activities and MNT 0.7 billion or 0.6 percent in income tax. However, there was a decrease in property taxes by MNT 3.2 billion or 69.3 percent.

General Government revenue was comprised of 73.8 percent of tax revenue, 7.6 percent of non-tax revenue, 18.6 percent of the future heritage fund.

In January 2019, total expenditure and net lending of the General Government Budget amounted to MNT 558.2 billion, increased by MNT 142.1 billion or 34.1 percent compared with the same period of previous year. This decline was mainly affected by increases in capital expenditure by MNT 23.9 billion or 4.6 times more and current expenditure by MNT 112.3 billion or 27.1 percent. However, there was a decrease in interest expenditure by MNT 41.8 billion or 94.3 percent.

General Government Budget expenditure and net lending was comprised of 94.3 percent of current expenditure, 5.5 percent of capital expenditure and 0.2 percent of net lending.

Source: National Statistics Office of Mongolia