At the last Cabinet meeting, Minister of Economy and Development Ch.Khurelbaatar gave information regarding foreign exchange reserves.
He said, “It has been six months since the government made the decision to increase Mongolia’s foreign exchange reserves. At that time, it fell to 2.5 billion USD, but at the end of March 2023, it had 3.438 billion USD.”
During the past six months, they have transferred every transaction regarding coal export activity to perform digitally. In total, there were 863 agreements made, and the coal was transported accordingly. Mongolia exported 14 million tons of coal in the first three months of this year.
Compared to 2019, coal exports increased by 2.5 million tons. This shows that the government’s proposals related to coal export are yielding results.
The third result is that coal is traded on the online exchange. Mongolia is introducing competition when selling our products on the exchange, and we are doing well.
Three companies, “Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi”, “Tavantolgoi”, and “Energy Resources” are selling 800,000 tons of coal on the exchange. For example, the price of coal, which was sold at 100 USD, has increased to 180 USD, and the thermal coal, which was sold at 9.5 USD per ton, is now selling at 73 USD. A lot of positive things are happening.
The sale of mining products shows that transparency is the right thing to do. This exchange trading shows that Mongolia needs to import and sell through competition, not just two directors sitting down and signing a contract to increase the price.
“The question of what to pay attention to after looking back at the activities after six months is being discussed.
Attention will be paid to the establishment of special gateways for the unimpeded export of coal sold on the exchange. All coal transportation contracts need to be digitized and registered. In other words, it will solve the problem of previously unregistered, unclear, and underpaid taxes. It is planned to take steps to increase the number of products sold on the exchange," expressed by the Minister.
He mentioned that they are planning to increase the number of products we sell on the exchange and increase the amount of copper in stages.
He also pointed out that Mongolia’s inflation rate has dropped to 10.6 percent in the first three months. At the end of 2022, it was 13.2 percent so, the inflation is slowly dropping.
