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Economy

Mongolia's environment minister counts COP17 at ₮217 billion of budget, ₮38.6 billion of it classified, against $1.4 billion of pledges

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change had ₮217.1 billion approved for hosting the UN desertification conference in August, of which ₮38.6 billion was budgeted for procurement classified as a state secret, minister Sandag-Ochir Tsend said at a press conference on Wednesday, gogo.mn reported. Ikon.mn quoted the same minister putting the conference's investment opportunities and pledges at $1.4 billion, about ₮5 trillion.

Mongolia's environment minister counts COP17 at ₮217 billion of budget, ₮38.6 billion of it classified, against $1.4 billion of pledges

The classified line has three named parts in gogo.mn's account: ₮13.6 billion in eight packages for the General Police Agency, ₮900 million in two packages for the forensic service, and ₮5.4 billion in two packages for the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications. Those add up to ₮19.9 billion. The report itemised no more of the ₮38.6 billion and gave no reason for the classification.

The spending calendar runs across two budgets. In 2025 the ministry planned 23 packages worth ₮50 billion and contracted ₮48.8 billion of them, by gogo.mn's figures; for 2026 the plan is ₮165.1 billion.

The yield, as the minister presented it, is a set of pledges with different perimeters. Ikon.mn quoted $1.4 billion, about ₮5 trillion, as the investment opportunities and pledges created for Mongolia; $400 million for drought resilience at the global level; $1.2 billion for grassland projects; and a regional mechanism of $2 billion through the Asian Development Bank to 2035. The four figures are not a sum, and the minister's report did not present them as one.

The report itemised no more of the ₮38.6 billion and gave no reason for the classification.

The desk's own count of COP17 money, published on 31 August, used another perimeter: the ADB's $2 billion facility, the European Investment Bank's €200 million with the World Bank's $100 million, and the ninth replenishment of the Global Environment Facility at $3.9 billion, down 27%. The two sets have not been reconciled, and Wednesday's press conference did not reconcile them.

Hotels in Ulaanbaatar took ₮5.4 billion during the conference, ikon.mn reported separately on Wednesday.

The bill was published in the week the State Great Khural is rewriting the 2026 budget in extraordinary session, with the Audit Office putting the amended deficit at ₮2.048 trillion, 2% of GDP. The ₮38.6 billion under secrecy is 1.9% of that deficit, and seven times what the city's hotels earned during the conference.