It has been 2 weeks since the campaign for presidential election has started. There are 3 candidates as we covered their biography briefly in the previous post here.

There is a ‘Like’ campaign in relation to the current President’s general campaign. The ‘Like’ campaign’s goal was to collect as much as like possible from the Facebook users in the country on the issues if it had been addressed correctly by the Ts. Elbegdorj. He’s own Facebook page has around 62 thousand likes.

MPP Candidate B.Bat-Erdene also has a Facebook fan page. However, he had a few thousand likes before his presidential campaign began. However, his page started to collect few dozen likes in a very short period of time reaching 57 thousand.

MPRP Candidate N.Udval has 8700 likes as of today.

MPP Candidate B.Bat-Erdene had a trick that hasn’t been seen in Mongolian political arena. His campaign team added a code to various news portal and blog sites that when you visit the page when you logged in Facebook, you will automatically like his page. You won’t even notice that did that.

In the previous elections both parliament and presidential, DP seem to use more electronic and media format methods to promote its candidates.

However, the script that MPP Candidate put on many local websites has never been used in Mongolia. He collected 6-7 fold of his ‘Like’s in a matter of 10 days.

It became apparent after a young Facebook user detected the code after watching the source code of Mongolian news portal www.deed.mn .

It is going to be an interesting election.

FAIRBANKS, ALASKA — Seven professors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks are helping establish an engineering school at the new American University of Mongolia.

Professors are helping develop curriculum and designing classrooms at the new university, located in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator.

The university signed a contract with American University this spring.

UAF Mining and Geological Engineering program chairman Rajive Ganguli, who is leading the project, said Alaska and Mongolia are similar when it comes to mining in the far north.

“Our cold climate engineering expertise is very relative to Mongolia, and they can benefit from it. And so we have academic agreements with Mongolia Institute of Science Technology and with Erdenet Mining Corporation,” he said.

There is no federal funding to help start the school, which is estimated to cost in the millions of dollars. Ganguli said most of that will come from private-sector mining companies in Mongolia.

“Mining has been booming in Mongolia for a few years,” Ganguli said. “Their economy is taking off. They’re one of the fastest growing economies in the world at about 17 percent. And so when you grow that fast, you need lots of good employees, especially in engineering given their investment in infrastructure and mines, et cetera.”

He added that helping start the new school is a very exciting prospect for the Alaska professors involved.

“It is wild to think you’re going to (create an) engineering school from scratch,” he said.

He said “the stuff we hate” about the education system, “we get to remedy.”

Ganguli added that his team will “review engineering education in some of the top universities – and we have our own ideas – and we’ll steal from the best.”

Source: Associated Press

Chief of Staff of the President P. Tsagaan gave information to the press regarding the news that has been published on various Indian news sources about the Mongolian President Ts. Elbegdorj committing a fraud on mining licenses.

He stated: “the false accusations and information is being published on not only local but foreign media sources in connection to the current election. There is no violation of the law regarding this issue. In 2009, the president was also accused of taking a fund from South Korea. We don’t want these accusations to repeat. According to our research, other presidential candidates spending 80% of their campaign on spreading false and negative information. Our principle holds the opposite. We want to speak our agenda and introduce our platform to the people.”

After resolving the long awaited inland customs issue Erdenes TT is now able to transport its coal to Gants Mod port directly from its mining site. Previously, Erdenes TT used to unload then reload the coal at Tsagaan Khad site for customs documentation purposes.

The issue was resolved after a long talk with the current buyer Chalco of China. Mr. Batsuuri Ya. CEO of Erdenes TT stated that this cancels the previous bid for coal transportation which Gobi Power LLC has won.

Ulan Bator: In a daring act of fraud that has the potential of jeopardising his re-election in the June 26 presidential polls, Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj and his close associates ingeniously duped a South Korean investor into buying a license for a gold mine that, after due diligence, was discovered to have no gold value at all.

This deception was carried out in mid-2012, but the Mongolian Government was able to use its influence to keep it under the wraps until now.

Mongolia’s economy is growing rapidly as a result of a mining boom. Leading investors describe Mongolia as the ” Kuwait of Central Asia “, but rampant corruption, political infighting and a still-incipient judicial system could hold its development and progress back.
The country has vast and largely untapped mineral deposits of copper, gold and coal, but until recently, has remained largely on the breadline. With several big mining projects on the horizon, there is scope for an economic boom through foreign investment. Such a scenario also paves the way for opportunists to exploit for personal and political gain.

According to reports, a South Korean investor was approached by President Elbegdorj’s men, who offered their support and services on behalf of the government. As a goodwill gesture, the investor offered humanitarian assistance by helping to reduce Ulan Bator’s winter smog problems by installing electrically heated floorboards for traditional Ger (Yurt) dwellers, which normally burn coal to escape the frosty conditions.

The head for Ulan Bator City Environment issues met the South Korean investor and informed her that the Mongolian Government wanted to show its appreciation by offering her a gold mining license with high-quality gold reserves for five million dollars.

It was a steal, they emphasised, as they had planned to offer the mining rights to a German company for 10 million dollars. The trap was set. There was also a hidden agenda. The investor was politely asked to top it up with a two million dollar ‘political donation’. Seven million was still a good deal. President Elbegdorj’s coffers for the 2013 presidential election had begun to swell. Thereafter, it was all about co-ordination and strategy. Sources say Mongolia’s Charge d Affaires in South Korea, Mr. Sukhee, met the investor and asked her to make the financial arrangements.

The head of the presidential administration, Mr. Tsagaan, and the foreign policy advisor of President Elbegdorj, Mr. Purevsuren, later arrived in South Korea and picked up four cashiers’ cheques, amounting to 150 million won each, and a cheque for 100 million Won. This was approximately 650,000 dollars.

The investor had also transferred three million dollars and began a due diligence of the mining area. Exploration studies were conducted at the cost of 400,000 dollars, which the investor and the Korean State Mineral Corporation (KSMC) financed together.

To their utter shock, there was no sign of gold anywhere in the region. They realised they had been hoodwinked by the Mongolian Government. The most shocking is that the gold mining site had been proposed to the investor by state officials. They were ordered by President Elbegdorj’s foreign policy advisor, Mr. Purevsuren, to market the mining license. Everything was official and left little room for doubt regarding the deal’s authenticity.

The dumbfounded investor is said to have accosted Mr. Sukhee, but now we hear that he has been conveniently appointed as Mongolia’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan. This is a matter that needs serious investigation and a closer looking into. Otherwise, a country that under Genghis Khan ruled most parts of Asia will simply wither away due to such corrupt practices.

Meanwhile, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has added the mineral rich backwaters of Mongolia to his portfolio of multi-million-pound business interests.

Under the terms of his contract, Blair will advise the Mongolian Government on its economic and business decisions.

However, with rampant corruption and pegged contracts staring at incumbent President Elbegdorj’s face, it remains to be seen how successful he is in steering Mongolia’s promising economy to its deserving heights.

Source: Zeenews

In a weekly press conference “30 minutes with Prime Minister” – Oyu Tolgoi related issues were discussed.

Oyu Tolgoi LLC was scheduled to commence its first copper concentrate shipment today. However, we heard that it was delayed. What is the reason for this interruption?

The initiation  to delay the shipment commencement came from Oyu Tolgoi LLC itself. Also, we have issues to resolve.

Does this mean the delay is caused by a certain demand from the government?

I think Minister of Economic Development N.Batbayar can answer this question in details. However, we didn’t demand any documentation or special procedure. The most important request was that the sales income must be positioned in Mongolia.

A working group was formed on amending the OT Investment Agreement. What progress has the group made on it? 

We realize that it is hard to amend an already signed agreement. We have worked in a very hard condition to amend the Chalco – Erdenes TT agreement. The OT Investment Agreement amendment was formed by four ministries. The working group met the investors numerous times. There are many issue we need a clarification. Therefore, I think the are progress on this issue. It is a hard situation when we have disagreements while shipment is about to commence.

The Feasibility Study of East Tsankhi, Tavan Tolgoi coking coal mine has been approved by the Minerals Council yesterday. Feasibility study estimated that 459 million tones of coking coal and 29.4 million tones of thermal coal will be processed in 15 years.

Also, the study indicated that the overall cost will be MNT 17.5 trillion and overall profit will be approximately MNT 24.6 trillion. The payback period of the plant is 4.2 years according to the team that conducted the study.

The team included IMK LLC, Grand Power LLC and professors of Science and Technology University of Mongolia.

It was a dream for many Mongolians especially for the Ulaanbaatar city dwellers to have a subway system. Finally the initiation came from the City Government after many years of research and feasibility study. Foundation was laid yesterday for the first UB Subway from Amgalan to Tolgoit through the Peace Avenue with distance of 17.7 km. The distance between the stations will be 800-1000 meters and it will take about 20-30 minutes to reach from one end to another.

It will be a great step of urban development of the city. The youngest subway in the world is currently the Almaty metro which took 23 years to build after number of disruptions and billions of dollars spent. Comparing to Almaty’s  inconsistent pebble stone, boulder pebble and boulder soils it is manageable to achieve the 2020 target for Ulaanbaatar.

City authorities believe it will be help to boost the value of real estate in the distant districts and expand the supply chain networks. The subway will not only profit from selling passenger tickets, it will also include ads in the stations and other shops and cafes that will be inside and around the stations. The research showed that it will add 150 thousand jobs as an effect subway being in place.

Initial budget for the subway system is $1.5 billion and JICA will support the 49% of the required investment. Remaining required capital will be budgeted in the state and city government budget.