The extraordinary session that opened on Monday has one week for the 2026 budget amendment. By its second day the two figures that matter had been placed on the record by the two men who own them: the money, by the prime minister; the price, by the auditor.
Uchral's argument started from a household number. Household income shrank 4.9% in the second quarter of 2026, he said, and wages have to be raised "to finish this year" with citizens protected; the pension increase, the headline of his remarks, comes from the same source. The money, in his words, would be recovered from the net profit of a state company "without letting it do something useless".
Then the mechanism. The National Wealth Fund law does not allow dividends accumulated on the accounts of state companies to be taken into the budget. So the amendment changes that law and, "because mining exports have grown", takes ₮1.5 trillion from Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi's net profit as a dividend to the budget.
The company's own books set the scale. Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi reported a net profit of ₮1.1 trillion ($306 million) for 2025 at its board meeting in February, down on 2024 with coal prices, and set a dividend of ₮63,242 after tax on the 1,072 shares each citizen holds. The ₮1.5 trillion is more than the whole of last year's profit. The premier did not say which year's profit it comes from; the government's own figure for the seven months to July is exports of $12 billion, up 57%.
Uchral's grievance was with the shareholder that never asked. The 1,072-share holders, who by his count own 26.5% of the company, have received dividends five times on those shares; the state, which owns the rest, took none. Had it taken its dividend, he said, the money would have reached citizens through the budget. Next year the plan is larger: 20 state companies to be listed on the stock market, and ₮3.5 trillion to be taken in 2027.
Finance minister Z. Mendsaikhan gave the spending side the same afternoon. Two measures: protect incomes, and hold prices down by building strategic reserves.
The ₮33 trillion approved last year "has not been increased", he said; the education and health pay rises that the Khural voted after the 2026 budget was submitted were never costed, and the government covers them by cutting its own operating costs. ₮80.1 billion ($22 million) lifts public-service salaries to the education and health level; health pay rises 20%.
The pension is the permanent part. The basic pension created by the spring package was to apply from 2027; the amendment brings it forward to 1 November 2026. If the bill passes, the pensions of 450,000 elderly people reach about ₮1.1 million ($306) from that date, and from 2027 they are indexed to inflation. Monday morning's session summary had given 435,000 recipients and ₮1.2 million; the minister's afternoon figures are the newer.
The ₮1.5 trillion is more than the whole of last year's profit.
On Tuesday morning general auditor S. Magnaisuren read the plenary the Audit Office's conclusion. The changes fit the country's long-term policy goals, it says, but they raise current spending and cut investment financing, which "may create a risk" to fiscal and price stability in the medium and long term.
Its arithmetic: consolidated balanced revenue of ₮31.930 trillion, a spending ceiling of ₮33.978 trillion, a balanced deficit of ₮2.048 trillion, 2% of GDP. Spending rises by ₮998 billion with no rise in balanced revenue.
The rule is where the auditor drew blood. Some of the Fiscal Stability Law's special requirements are met, the conclusion says, but the primary balance is not in surplus by 2% of GDP or more, so the requirements are not met together. Raising public-service pay and the basic pension lifts household income and domestic demand, it adds, "but carries the risk of increasing inflationary pressure"; and if revenue falls short of plan, that, in the auditor's words, may put fiscal stability at risk.
The two documents describe one design. A coal windfall, one year's worth, becomes a floor that does not move: a pension indexed from 2027 and a public-service pay scale levelled up to education's and health's. Its instrument is the wall itself. The National Wealth Fund law was written to keep state companies' money out of current spending; the amendment opens it for one company this year and, on the premier's plan, for 20 next year. The 2027 draft submitted on 31 August already suspends the spending cap for that year on the strength of state-company and Oyu Tolgoi dividends.
The vote comes in stages: the Budget Standing Committee on Friday 11 September, the second reading and the session's close on Monday 14 September. What the Khural is being asked to fix is the price of a good coal year, and the auditor has priced it at 2% of GDP if the revenue lands.