The session was announced on Wednesday morning for two in the afternoon in Ulaanbaatar, and the decision surfaced about an hour later: the policy rate up 0.5 points to 12.5%, the tugrik reserve requirement up 0.5 points to 14.5%. Shuud.mn calls it the first increase since the third quarter of 2025.
Governor S. Narantsogt’s remarks at the press conference give the reasoning and the decomposition. July inflation ran at 13.0%. Core inflation reached 6.9%, up 0.8 points on the month. Food contributed 6.5 points of the headline figure and fuel 1.2. The framing is pre-emptive: keep a supply shock out of expectations and out of wage-setting before it settles there.
It reaches us as reported speech. Mongolbank has posted nothing. The rate moved at two in the afternoon, and at the end of the working day the bank’s own panel still read 12%, dated 24 June. Montsame, the state agency, had not carried the decision either. Treat the absence as a lag rather than as a denial.
The second move came from the fuel emergency headquarters. State secretary B. Dashpurev said the measures introduced to shorten queues stop from 15 August: both the ₮50,000 ceiling on a single purchase, about $14, and the even and odd plate rule at filling stations. In the previous 24 hours 1,200 tonnes of AI-92 reached Ulaanbaatar, which is roughly one day of national consumption, and 180 wagons carrying about 11,000 tonnes are moving from Russia.
The same date starts the other rule. From 15 August to 12 September, between 07:00 and 21:00, Ulaanbaatar sorts cars onto the road by odd and even plates, city-wide and without zoning, through the whole of COP17, which opens on Monday. Demand management moves from the forecourt to the street.
The rate moved at two in the afternoon, and at the end of the working day the bank’s own panel still read 12%.
Moscow’s contribution to August still rests on one man’s word. The 25,000 tonnes of AI-92 and 5,000 tonnes of aviation fuel announced this week are sourced, in Interfax, Kommersant and Izvestia alike, to Damdinnyam, the industry and mineral resources minister, and to his own ministry’s posting. No Russian ministry or company has confirmed the allocation in its own name. The separate commercial order of 50,000 tonnes from Rosneft for August is a different number and should not be added to it.