Former Justice Minister arrested on corruption charges www.news.mn

Earlier today, Mongolia’s anti-corruption agency arrested former Justice Minister D.Dorligjav and his younger brother D.Baatar. Law enforcement officers also searched the former minister’s home yesterday (7 January).

Two Mongolians arrested for smuggling dinosaur fossil www.news.mn

Mongolian Police have arrested two people over the illegal possession of a rare dinosaur fossil. The pair, a man from Ulaanbaatar and another from South Gobi (Umnugobi) province, were arrested after the police found information on the internet announcing the sale of the fossil.

Prosecutor reveals officials involved in SME Fund scandal www.zgm.mn

Prosecutor’s Office recently disclosed the names of suspects in an official letter addressed to the Constitutional Court.

Children overcrowd hospitals due to swine flu outbreak www.zgm.mn

Regardless of immediate measure to increase capacity by adding additional beds, hospitals overcrowded with children suffering from influenza and common cold. In the first week of this year, a total of 4,136 instances out of 57,508 ambulatory care were diagnosed with influenza or similar illness in the capital city alone.

A cold blast from China chills industrial metals markets: Andy Home www.mining.com

Base metals started the new year where they left off the old one, by falling again.

The London Metal Exchange index (LMEX) slumped to a one-and-a-half year low of 2730.1 on Jan. 3.

The trigger was Apple Inc's revenue warning, not the type of news event that normally roils prices of old-economy metals such as copper, lead and zinc.

But the reaction was highly instructive of what to expect in the months ahead. It signals that base metals continue to be beholden to the bigger financial narrative, locked into a risk-on, risk-off dance with global markets, particularly the U.S. stock market.

First and foremost, it signals that base metals continue to be beholden to the bigger financial narrative, locked into a risk-on, risk-off dance with global markets, particularly the U.S. stock market.

The linkage comes in the form of U.S. President Donald Trump and the tariffs tension with China.

What really spooked global markets in Apple's rare warning was the company's comments about disappointing sales in China, an ominous sign that a slowdown in the world's second largest economy risks ricocheting on the world's largest.

Such fears were only exacerbated by sliding manufacturing purchasing managers' indices in both countries.

Signs of actual contraction in China bode particularly ill for metals, given the country remains the engine of growth in global usage.

Metals bulls are banking on Beijing doing what it always does when the going gets tough, opening the taps and stimulating investment down the usual infrastructure and construction channels.

We've been here before in 2009 and 2015 and both times the trick worked. This time, however, could be different.

Made in China
Both China's official manufacturing PMI and the Caixin PMI, which captures the mood among the country's smaller companies, fell below the 50 level in December, signalling slowdown has become outright contraction.

The last time this happened was in 2015, a year of misery for the LME metals complex, which only bottomed out in January 2016.

There was no trade war back then but the core driver is the same. Both slowdowns were made in China by the Chinese government.

Beijing's target last year was the same as in 2015, namely to soak up excess liquidity caused by the previous stimulus and its most obvious manifestation in disorderly property markets.

Metals analysts have been fretting about the impact of China's credit tightening for many months, particularly since it has hit hardest the relatively dynamic private sector.

This time around, they have more to worry about.

Overlaying the credit chill effect on manufacturing activity has been Beijing's new "war on smog" policy.

Analysts tend to focus on the winter heating season restrictions but the environmental crackdown has been running continuously for over a year and has encompassed every part of China's metals economy.

Many smaller companies, both producers and users, have been closed while even official-sector supply chains have been upended by rounds of inspections and restrictions.

It's impossible to quantify the cumulative hit in terms of headline growth but there is no doubt that the clean air campaign has been a significant drag and one that isn't going to go away any time soon.

The two government policies have combined to hit China's manufacturing sector even before the tariffs effect comes fully into play.

Stimulus and the law of diminishing returns
The Chinese authorities have reacted with an increased sense of urgency to the deteriorating economic picture.

More infrastructure spending has been promised with the focus on urban subway systems, high-speed railways and power grid spending.

This week has brought a bigger stimulus jab in the form of a cut in banks' reserve ratios, in effect freeing up $116 billion in new lending.

However, Beijing's stimulus cycle is subject to the law of diminishing returns. The scale of stimulus in 2015-2016 was much smaller than that of 2009 and the third is likely to be smaller still.

Not only is it physically impossible to replicate the amount of infrastructure built over the last 10 years – there are, after all, only so many airports and high-speed railway lines that even China needs.

But Beijing is now wary, third time around, of the excess that inevitably follows a government-made boom.

Look, for example, at the residential property sector, where policymakers are still warning of speculative excess and trying to wean regional governments off their financial addiction to land sales.

Stimulus the third time around will be no shock-and-awe package but, rather, an attempt to smooth out select areas of weakness in the Chinese economy.

It will also take time to flow through to tangible metals demand.

Beware dead cats
A broad analyst consensus is that the impact of the current round of Chinese stimulus will start to lift metals prices some time in the second quarter.

Before then, to quote Goldman Sachs, "industrial metals are likely to face material headwinds and remain volatile in (the first quarter)." That Jan. 4 prognosis accompanied a downgrade of the bank's near-term price forecasts.

Goldman, however, like many commentators is still constructive on the medium-term outlook, maintaining 12-month targets of $7,000 per tonne for copper and $2,000 for aluminium, compared with current prices of $5,930 and $1,860 respectively.

The next few months, everyone seems to agree, are going to be difficult ones for bulls.

There is plenty of potential for sharp corrective rallies. Speculators are short metals across the LME board, according to broker Marex Spectron.

In cases such as aluminium and nickel the positioning is extreme, which is why both are eating into production cost curves.

A corrective bounce is only a presidential tweet away as the markets try and read the smoke signals from the ongoing trade talks between the United States and China.

But any rally may be of the dead cat variety.

Hopes for a trade war peace, or at least a truce, may dominate short-term sentiment but tariffs on China will only accelerate or brake a process that is already underway.

China engineered its current slowdown and now it must engineer growth.

Beijing's biggest problem is how to do this without repeating the mistakes of the past and simply generating a new round of the stimulus-boom-bust cycle that played out after 2009 and 2015.

Complicating this balancing act is the "blue skies" promise made by President Xi Jinping to the Chinese people. The clean air campaign can be dialled down but it cannot be reversed.

And lastly, but not least, Beijing must try and reinvigorate its economy just as manufacturing growth everywhere else is starting to slow.

It's a tall order.

China's third stimulus in a decade may not prove to be three times lucky for industrial metals.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)

(By Andy Home, editing by Susan Fenton)

TMH delivered freight locomotives to Mongolia www.railwaypro.com

Transmashholding has shipped three 2TE25KM freight locomotives to Mongolia on December 25, manufactured by Bryansk Engineering Plant (BMZ) for Ulan Bator Railway.
The 2TE25KM diesel locomotive is the most modern domestic diesel locomotive designed with advanced technical solutions. 2TE25KM is a freight mainline two-section locomotive with AC-DC electrical transmission with single-axle traction control. As compared with diesel locomotives of mass production, 2TE25KM loco can haul freight trains, which are at average heavier by 20%, with reduced costs of operation. This is achieved due to a higher engine capacity factor.
The locomotives are specially designed for Mongolia’s climatic conditions, according to the customer’s specifications. Certain changes were made to the design of the diesel locomotive for Ulan Bator Railway regarding the diesel generator, the air cleaning system and the high-voltage system.
Currently, Ulan Bator Railway is operating two 2TE25KM main freight diesel locomotives produced by Bryansk Engineering Plant.

Ambassador B.Ganbold appointed as Head of ENEA Office www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Ambassador of Mongolia to the Republic of Korea B.Ganbold was appointed as the Head of Subregional Office for East and North-East Asia (ENEA) of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and took office on January 7, 2019.

$1 trillion is leaving Britain because of Brexit www.cnn.com

London (CNN Business)Brexit hasn't happened yet but it's already shrinking the United Kingdom's financial services industry.

Banks and other financial companies have shifted at least £800 billion ($1 trillion) worth of assets out of the country and into the European Union because of Brexit, EY said in a report published Monday.
Many banks have set up new offices elsewhere in the European Union to safeguard their regional operations after Brexit, which means they also have to move substantial assets there to satisfy EU regulators. Other firms are moving assets to protect clients against market volatility and sudden changes in regulation.
The consultancy said the figure represented roughly 10% of the total assets of the UK banking sector, and was a "conservative estimate" because some banks have not yet revealed their contingency plans.
"Our numbers only reflect the moves that have been announced publicly," said Omar Ali, head of financial services at EY. "We know that behind the scenes firms are continuing to plan for a 'no deal' scenario."
EY has tracked 222 of the biggest UK financial services companies since the Brexit referendum in June 2016.
Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union in just 81 days, but Prime Minister Theresa May still needs to win support in the UK parliament for the divorce deal she struck with the rest of the European Union.

Parliament is due to vote on the deal next week. If May ultimately fails to push the agreement through, the chances of the country crashing out of the European Union without a deal will soar.
The Bank of England said the fallout from that scenario would be worse than the 2008 financial crisis.
For financial institutions, a no-deal Brexit would be a nightmare. The country's agreements with EU regulators would cease to exist and banks would find themselves in a legal vacuum, meaning they would be unable to continue doing some of their business across the bloc.
While the European Union has said it will implement some steps to avoid a complete meltdown, it said its contingency plan is only a short-term solution aimed at protecting its own interests.
"Financial services firms have no choice but to continue preparing on the basis of a 'no deal' scenario," Ali said.

EY said that the companies it tracks have already created around 2,000 new jobs elsewhere in the European Union in response to Brexit.
Deutsche Bank (DB), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Citi (C) have already moved parts of their business out of the United Kingdom. Dublin, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Paris were the most popular destinations.
EY said financial companies were likely to move more assets and create more jobs in other European cities over the coming weeks. "The closer we get to March 29 without a deal, the more assets will be transferred and headcount hired locally or relocated," Ali added.
London has been Europe's undisputed financial capital for decades, and is home to the international headquarters of dozens of global banks.
The financial services industry employs 2.2 million people across the country, and contributes 12.5% of GDP. It generates £72 billion ($100 billion) in tax revenue each year, according to the City of London Corporation.
The UK economy has already suffered from Brexit. Inflation spiked and consumer confidence dropped, hurting the country's retail sector. Business investment has fallen dramatically, as companies put plans on hold because of the uncertainty. Major manufacturers, including Airbus, have warned they may have to quit the United Kingdom if there's a no-deal Brexit.
German engineering group Schaeffler is closing two plants in the United Kingdom because of the uncertainty.
The latest evidence of the pain came on Monday, when the UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said new car registrations in the country fell 6.8% in 2018. It was the second consecutive year of declines

Why Russia isn’t worried about lower oil prices www.rt.com

Even as Saudi Arabia has scrambled to prevent a bust in the oil market, so far failing to head off a dramatic price slide, Russia seems just fine with prices where they are.
Russia is a key piece of the oil price puzzle. OPEC, once a coalition of oil-producing members that made joint decisions to maintain market stability, has morphed into a Saudi-led cartel that desperately needs Russian cooperation to strengthen the group’s efforts. Many OPEC members are either at maximum capacity, are suffering from production declines at aging fields, or are characterized by instability, making any promises to boost or cut production hollow. The only countries unaffected by such issues are Saudi Arabia and its new strategic partner, Russia.

But Russia is not as desperate for higher oil prices as is Saudi Arabia. There are a few reasons for this. One of the key reasons is that the Russian currency is flexible, so it weakens when oil prices fall. That cushions the blow during a downturn, allowing Russian oil companies to pay expenses in weaker rubles while still taking in US dollars for oil sales. Second, tax payments for Russian oil companies are structured in such a way that their tax burden is lighter with lower oil prices.

Saudi Arabia needs oil prices at roughly $84 per barrel for its budget to breakeven. The international outrage over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has also left Riyadh isolated. The hyped-up economic reform plans from crown prince Mohammed bin Salman are in tatters, and Saudi Arabia is back at the drawing board, in desperate need of higher oil prices.

Russia is more stoic in the face of an oil price meltdown. “The drop in oil prices hardly bother us because our budget is based on $42 a barrel,” First Deputy Prime Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters in Moscow on December 26. “The price can stay around $40-$50 for a time — six months or a year,” Siluanov said, before adding: “We think this won’t last long.” But even if the price downturn does persist, Russia won’t be in trouble because of its ample foreign exchange reserves, he said.

Igor Sechin, the head of Russia’s state-owned Rosneft, said that oil prices “should have stabilized, because everyone was supposed to be scared” by the enormous OPEC+ production cuts. “But nobody was scared,” he said, according to Bloomberg. He blamed the Federal Reserve’s rate tightening for injecting volatility into the oil market, because traders have sold off speculative positions in the face of higher interest rates.

The bottom line is that Russia does not feel the same urgency as Saudi Arabia. It was only a matter of days after Russia agreed to the OPEC+ agreement — which called for production cuts of 1.2 million barrels per day (mb/d) beginning in January — that Russian officials suggested that their output would only decline slightly at the start of the New Year.

Russia’s oil minister Alexander Novak said in mid-December that output could dip by a modest 50,000 to 60,000 bpd in January, far short of the roughly 230,000 bpd of cuts Russia is supposed to take on. That would put Russian output at about 11.35 mb/d, not far from the post-Soviet high of 11.41 mb/d hit in October. “Everything will depend on technological and climate possibilities. We will get proposals from the companies,” Novak said, according to Reuters. “We will see how the situation would evolve.”

At the same time, Novak offered the market some assurances that the OPEC+ coalition would step in to stabilize the market if the situation deteriorates, suggesting that OPEC+ has the ability to call an extraordinary meeting. He told reporters in late December that the market still faces a lot of unknowns. “All these uncertainties, which are now on the market: how China will behave, how India will behave... trade wars and unpredictability on the part of the US administration... those are defining factors for price volatility,” Novak said.

Nevertheless, Novak predicted the 1.2 mb/d cuts announced in Vienna would be sufficient.

Some analysts echo Novak’s sentiment that, despite the current panic in the market, the cuts should be sufficient. “We are looking at oil prices heading towards $70 to $80…quite a recovery in 2019. That’s really predicated on the thought that first of all, OPEC still is here. And I think that the market is underestimating that they are going to cut supply by 1.2 mb/d,” Dominic Schnider of UBS Wealth Management told CNBC. “And demand looks healthy…so we might find ourselves into 2019 in a situation where the market is actually tight.”

Elon Musk breaks ground on first Tesla factory outside US www.bbc.com

Tesla boss Elon Musk has broken ground at a new factory in Shanghai, the electric carmaker's first manufacturing plant outside the US.