The Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources published the law’s six headline provisions on its site within hours of the vote. By the ministry’s own projection, bringing the copper royalty into line with international benchmarks could lift copper concentrate output by up to 47%, to 3.3 million tonnes, and royalty assessments by up to 37%, to 2.25 trillion tugrik.
The ministry does not say whether the rate rises or falls, and names no base year for either figure. Its own numbers, output up by 47% against assessments up by 37%, imply a smaller take per tonne, by CAW’s arithmetic, and the bill’s surcharge scale of May was lower than the progressive surcharge on copper concentrate under the law in force.
By the ministry’s own projection, bringing the copper royalty into line with international benchmarks could lift copper concentrate output by up to 47%, to 3.3 million tonnes, and royalty assessments by up to 37%, to 2.25 trillion tugrik.
The other five points are shorter on numbers. Geological survey and exploration are to be stepped up and the legal basis for a critical minerals policy strengthened, for minerals of strategic importance whose demand on world markets is growing, in the ministry’s words. Processing at home is to be supported over raw extraction.
The share of royalties that goes to the Local Development Fund is doubled, with a policy of allocating more to the areas affected by mining, and the ministry names neither the old share nor the new. Mine rehabilitation and closure get a reporting system tied to each year’s mining and beneficiation reports, so that closure preparation and financial responsibility can be tracked.
What the adopted text changed against the bill is not on the ministry’s page. The bill, submitted by minister Gongor Damdinnyam on 26 May after what the Ulaanbaatar news site ikon.mn called 12 years of talk, halved the exploration licence term to six years and raised the fee. It set a copper royalty surcharge of 0 to 15% on ore, 0 to 5% on concentrate and 0 to 2.5% on products according to price, and it aimed to end the trade in licences and the uncontrolled purchase of minerals of unknown origin, by ikon.mn’s reading of the draft. No page CAW read by 13:20 Ulaanbaatar time carried the vote count, the effective date or the final royalty scale: the ministry’s release, ikon.mn’s front and news.mn’s front.
The budget revision was the morning’s first business. The Khural set consolidated 2026 spending at 33.9 trillion tugrik, revenue at 31.9 trillion and the deficit at 2 trillion, ikon.mn reported at 10:41 Ulaanbaatar time. Of the deficit, 1.8 trillion is to be covered by government securities and 1 trillion of revenue is to come from state-owned companies’ dividends. Civil service pay gets 651 billion more, and the spending total is 971.5 billion above the figure approved earlier in the year.
The revision had been on the floor since 5 October, when the plenary sent four bills back to committee. The committees closed it on 6 October and set a 2% of GDP deficit cap for the 2027 budget due by 15 November, and Batjargal of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party set 20 October as the deadline for the revision. ikon.mn’s report of the sitting prints no deficit as a share of GDP.
The Wealth Fund’s 2026 budget amendment was on the same list of bills, ikon.mn reported. Its 2027 line is where the Oyu Tolgoi dividend sits. Democratic Party MP Batchimeg said on Thursday that the government had put 3 trillion tugrik of Oyu Tolgoi dividend into the 2027 draft without clarity, that 1 trillion of it was to go to the Wealth Fund, and that she read the 2027 spending line as election money, ikon.mn reported at 13:08. Mongolia holds 34% of the mine and Rio Tinto 66%, so a 3 trillion payout to the state implies about 6 trillion to Rio Tinto pro rata, by her arithmetic as ikon.mn printed it.
Britain’s interest in Mongolian minerals is on the record from February. Industry minister Chris McDonald agreed with Damdinnyam in London on 25 February to establish a joint working group to speed up the 2024 Memorandum of Cooperation, and the British Geological Survey discussed geological cooperation through the planned working group, the Mongolian embassy in London reported. The UK Critical Minerals Strategy of November 2025 names Mongolia among its partners. Neither document mentions the bill.
The law goes to the president for promulgation, and the ministry’s page prints no date for its entry into force.