Mongolia presents its case at PDAC convention

B. Aligermaa It was heartening to see at the latest PDAC (The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada) convention how Mongolia commanded the attention of many of the 25,843 attendees from more than 130 countries at the world’s premier annual mineral exploration and mining event, held in Toronto from March 3 to 6.

To come back to Mongolia, our Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry, D. Sumiyabazar, was among the ministers responsible for mining in 24 countries from around the world who took part in the 4th International Mines Ministers Summit (IMMS) on March 5, organized by PDAC jointly with the World Economic Forum, to explore the future of responsible mineral supply chains.

This year Mongolia had its largest ever pavilion at the PDAC, enabling a large attendance at the well-planned Mongolia @PDAC 2019 event on March 4.

In her remarks, Undraa Agvaanluvsan, Member of Parliament and Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Responsible Mining, said work-related safety was the most important issue for Mongolians. She urged all Mongolian mining companies to “improve the safety practices in their daily operations”, and commended Oyu Tolgoi for bringing the best safety practices to Mongolia.

The Mongolian team there, representing both the public and private sectors, included Minister Sumiyabazar, the CEO of Erdenes Mongol, senior executives from Oyu Tolgoi LLC, Steppe Gold, Xanadu Mines, and Erdene Resource Development, and a big international audience, including the Director for Natural Resources at EBRD, investors, financial advisors, technical experts, and lawyers.

Bulgantuya Khurelbaatar, Deputy Minister of Finance, provided informative answers to questions from investors and prospectors, ably fielding some uncomfortable ones. For example, replying to a question on raising the licence transfer tax to 30% of the sale price, she readily admitted that “there was a backlash from the mining sector, especially from prospectors” and said that, subject to Parliament’s approval of a new tax reform policy, the tax would be 10%, “with more stringent enforcement of compliance”.