Mongolia
Rationing meets high season in Mongolia
Mongolia’s tour guides went public on Wednesday with what fuel rationing is costing the strongest tourist season in four years. The UN’s desertification summit opens in Ulaanbaatar in 12 days.
Mongolia’s leverage lies in other people’s courtrooms
Shareholders in New York and Québec have twice put a price on the Oyu Tolgoi construction story. One settlement has been approved; the other awaits a hearing. Ulaanbaatar used that story once, in 2022, but has since left it in the drawer. A former government insider says it is time to take it out.
Mongolia rations the pump, and Bishkek pays double
From today Mongolian filling stations serve cars by the last digit of the plate, with each purchase capped at 50,000 tugriks, roughly $13. In Bishkek the cabinet orders tight control of a market where petrol now costs nearly twice what it does across the Kazakh border.
Mongolia queues for petrol two weeks before COP17
AI-92 stocks fell by nearly half in three weeks to 17 days of consumption, queues at the pumps run five and six hours, and the government’s answer is measured in storage tanks and years.
Ulaanbaatar brings dust storms to the COP17 table
Mongolia and UNESCAP will launch a regional initiative on sand and dust storms at COP17 in August, built with the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat of China, Japan and South Korea.
Ulaanbaatar counts 4,127 delegates, and rations its traffic
Registration for the UN desertification conference COP17 reached 4,127 delegates, the state agency MONTSAME reported on 29 July, against the more than 2,000 it reported days earlier. The capital will run even-odd licence-plate restrictions from 15 August to 12 September.
Nowhere to put a bad week
The region has spent a decade building capacity to move things and almost nothing to hold them. July is showing what that costs.
Mongolia enters the EAEU tariff system
The interim trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Mongolia entered into force on 22 July. Duties are cut or removed on 367 tariff subheadings for each side, covering about 90% of the trade between them, for three years with automatic renewal. By the commission’s account, Mongolia has no comparable agreement with anyone else in the region.
Tajikistan and Mongolia sign twelve documents, minerals and glaciers included
After talks in Ulaanbaatar on 21 July, Emomali Rahmon and Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh adopted a joint statement, and 11 further documents were signed in their presence. The list runs heavier than the trade between the two countries: two mining lines, a road-transport agreement, and a glacier-and-desertification memorandum four weeks before Ulaanbaatar hosts the UN’s desertification conference.
Rahmon returns to Ulaanbaatar after 17 years
Tajikistan’s president arrived in Mongolia on Monday for a state visit running to 22 July, his first since March 2009, returning last year’s first-ever trip by a Mongolian president to Dushanbe. The talks and the signing come on Tuesday, and the document list is the watch.
Rusal exploring $20 million cable and wire plant in Mongolia
A proposed plant near Ulaanbaatar would produce 4,500 tonnes of cables and conductors a year using Russian aluminium wire rod for Mongolia’s domestic market, Central Asia Wire has learned.
Korea courts Mongolia with a golden era and a minerals list
Lee Jae-myung’s state visit to Ulaanbaatar, the first by a South Korean president in 15 years, ended Saturday at Naadam, after a "Golden Era" declaration and a stack of memoranda. He arrived straight from the NATO summit, and the itinerary is the message: defense industry in Ankara, critical minerals in Mongolia, and a Central Asia summit in Seoul this autumn.
Mongolia took the win it could get on Oyu Tolgoi
On 30 June the government announced a breakthrough with Rio Tinto: a lower interest rate on the shareholder loan and half off management fees. Set against what Ulaanbaatar spent two years demanding, it is a modest trade, and the politics of the applause matter more than the terms.
Mongolia’s energy workers begin an indefinite strike, testing a grid that leans on imports
From 8 a.m. on 30 June, energy-sector workers across Mongolia walked out for an indefinite strike after wage talks broke down, their union federation said. Only emergency crews stayed on, leaving a power system that already runs on aging plants and imported electricity under added strain.
Mongolia owns a third of Oyu Tolgoi. It is still waiting for the first dividend
A year ago the streets of Ulaanbaatar filled over a simple grievance: the country sits on world-class mineral wealth and rarely feels it. The copper has grown more valuable since. The wait has not grown shorter.
Oyu Tolgoi exports resume a day after protesters blocked the road
Rio Tinto restarted copper concentrate shipments from its giant Mongolian mine on 18 June, a day after the Radical Reform movement blocked the export road. The protest lasted under a day. The grievance behind it has lasted years.
Protesters block Oyu Tolgoi road and halt copper exports to China
Mongolia's Radical Reform movement blocked the main transport road from Rio Tinto's Oyu Tolgoi mine at 09:00 on 17 June, stopping copper concentrate trucks heading for the Chinese border. Rio's shares fell 1.6% in London. The dispute is about who gets how much from one of the world's largest copper deposits.
Mongolia’s two-neighbor squeeze, and the third neighbor that cannot reach it
China’s foreign minister spent three days in Ulaanbaatar this week promising railways and a shared future. The warmth is real, and so are its limits: nearly everything that should give Mongolia bargaining power, from gas transit to rare earths, is worth only what Beijing or Moscow agrees to pay for it.
Mongolia is building a railway straight into China's steel industry — and it knows exactly what that means
83 million tonnes of coal exported to China in 2024. A new cross-border railway under construction since April 2025. $1.5 billion in additional annual revenue projected. The numbers are compelling. The dependency is real.
Mongolia went to Shanghai to raise money. 300 investors showed up
The first Mongolia Investment Forum in China closed on May 27. It was the fourth edition of a global series — after New York, London, and Singapore. The choice of city was the message.