Mongolia
Russia keeps its pumps on Euro-2 to June 2027 while its export bans hold, Novak tells the government
Deputy prime minister Alexander Novak has reported the state of the fuel market to a government subcommission chaired by first deputy prime minister Denis Manturov, Kommersant reported on Thursday evening: exports of petrol, diesel and jet fuel are banned, the Tax Code has been amended to create the conditions for fuel imports, and filling stations may sell fuel of ecological classes K2, K3 and K4, Euro-2 to Euro-4, under a temporary permit. The permit rests on a government resolution reported on 31 August and runs from 1 September to 30 June 2027. The bans are the ones already on record, and the producers' diesel ban ends on 30 September.
A ₮3.5 billion line for a school tied to the family of Mongolia's prime minister surfaces in the budget rewrite, and the ministry has not published the list
A member of the State Great Khural says the government's amendment to the 2026 budget carries 3.5 billion tugrik ($970,000) for the Ikh Zasag King school, which prime minister Nyam-Osoryn Uchral himself calls the school connected to his family. The prime minister says the school asked for nothing, the finance minister says nothing was allocated to it, and the education ministry has yet to publish which schools share the 18 billion tugrik line the sum sits in.
China's fuel promise to Mongolia gets a number: 17,000 tonnes for September, and a 20-year frame around it
CNPC will ship Mongolia 10,000 tonnes of petrol, 4,000 tonnes of jet fuel and 3,000 tonnes of diesel this month, the industry ministry said on Thursday, 9 days after Montsame reported Xi Jinping's promise of fuel with no tonnage attached. The petrol covers about a sixth of the month's book; the diesel about 2%. The larger object in the readout is a memorandum the two sides now intend to sign: 20 years of crude, refinery feedstock and coal chemicals, with a price formula and a rail chain still to be written.
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 fuel headquarters counts 19,853 tonnes of petrol in September's first week and queues of 105 cars in Bayan-Ulgii
The emergency headquarters on fuel supply reported on Tuesday that 19,853 tonnes of AI-92 crossed the border in the first week of September, and ordered more fuel into five aimags where the average queue at a station runs 85 to 105 vehicles, against 54 elsewhere.
Mongolia's premier reaches into the coal company's profit for the pension rise, and the auditor puts the deficit at 2% of GDP
Nyam-Osoryn Uchral said on Monday, as the State Great Khural's extraordinary session opened on the budget amendment, that this year's pension and wage increases will be paid with ₮1.5 trillion ($417 million) taken from Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi as a dividend, through an amendment to the law that keeps state companies' dividends out of the budget. On Tuesday the general auditor told the same chamber that the package adds ₮998 billion of spending with no new revenue and fails the fiscal rule's primary-balance test.
On the map in your pocket, Russia is 10 Central Asias. On the ground it is 4.3
The UN General Assembly voted on Friday to push the world's maps away from Mercator, for Africa's sake. CAW ran the same arithmetic across Eurasia: the standard web map hands Russia a latitude premium that doubles its visual weight against Central Asia, and hands Central Asia a premium of its own against every neighbour to its south and east. Correcting the map takes the northern half of that bargain away.
Mongolia's parliament opens a budget rewrite that turns a 57% export jump into pensions and pay rises
The State Great Khural opened its extraordinary session at 10:02 on Monday with 64.3% of its members in the hall and one package before it: the amendment to the 2026 budget that the government submitted on 20 August. In the parliament's own summary the case is four numbers. The economy grew 7.6% over seven months, exports reached $12 billion, up 57%, and the government wants ₮250,000 ($70) a month more for 435,000 pensioners and 20 to 50% more for 149,000 state employees. Both increases are permanent. Both begin in the year's last two months, and the full bill arrives in 2027, the year the government's own draft budget suspends the spending cap.
Mongolia's premier hears Moscow's fuel pledge in Vladivostok while 165 rural stations run below normal
Nyam-Osoryn Uchral met Russia's energy minister Sergei Tsivilev at the Eastern Economic Forum and heard that Russia keeps Mongolia's supply stable under their intergovernmental agreements despite its export restrictions, Montsame reported on Thursday. At home, the ministry's own count says 200 of 365 rural stations were working normally on 30 August.
Mongolia's parliament returns on 7 September to rewrite this year's budget
The Speaker's Council called an extraordinary session of the State Great Khural for 7 to 14 September with one item on it: the amendment to the 2026 budget. The 2027 draft filed on 31 August, the one that suspends the spending rule, is not on the list.
Ulaanbaatar's 2027 budget suspends its own spending rule for a year
The government sent parliament a 2027 budget on Monday with 41.3 trillion tugriks of revenue, 43.6 trillion of spending and a 2.3 trillion deficit, and asked to switch off the spending ceiling of the Fiscal Stability Law for the year. The exemption is justified by one-off money: state-company and Oyu Tolgoi dividends, domestic securities and last year's carry-overs.
Xi promises Mongolia fuel as its August petrol book closes 8.4% short
Xi Jinping affirmed in Bishkek that China will keep supplying Mongolia with petroleum products through the market's instability. At home, the prime minister's task force closed August with petrol arrivals 8.4% short of orders, and diesel delivered in full.
Mongolia's fuel queues thin out, by the ministry's own count
The industry ministry counted 58 cars per station on 31 August against 70 to 75 a week earlier, and credited the taskforce running the crisis. The tonnage ledger that would prove a turn is kept separately, and its August petrol line ran a third short at the last public accounting.
The rule leaves, the money stays
COP17 closed with $1.3 billion in restoration and drought finance and no drought framework. The instrument fight moves to Egypt in 2028, and Central Asia spends the pause competing for discretionary money it helped argue into existence.
Ulaanbaatar closes the drought books at $1.3 billion
COP17 closed at the end of last week with a $1.3 billion restoration and drought portfolio for 23 countries, while the decision on a global drought regime travels on to Egypt.
Ulaanbaatar takes back 407 pieces of its greenbelt
The governor of Mongolia's capital revoked land rights on 407 plots in the forested belt around Ulaanbaatar, out of 11,706 granted there, after inspections of 26 summer-cottage zones, the state agency Montsame reported on Friday.
Mongolia's August petrol book runs a third short of its orders
Mongolia has received 51,000 of the 74,780 tons of AI-92 it contracted for August, industry ministry state secretary Buriad Dashpurev said on Thursday, with about 23,000 tons more expected before month-end; diesel stands at 130,000 of 158,650 tons.
The drought rule leaves Ulaanbaatar for Egypt
The fight that defined the desertification summit's second week ends without an instrument: negotiators reached what the talks' rapporteurs called a delicate agreement to carry the drought question to COP18, and the closing plenary was set to adopt the package on Friday afternoon in Ulaanbaatar.
The ADB puts $400 million behind the region's border queues
The Asian Development Bank approved on Thursday a $400 million regional facility, BUILD, to modernise border crossings across the 11 CAREC countries, with up to $50 million per project over 10 years. The priority projects named so far are Tajik: Fotehobod-Oybek on the Uzbek border, Sarazm and Navbunyod.