Discussion on companies in Tavan Tolgoi

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia /MONTSAME/ At its regular meeting on Wednesday, the cabinet supported the document pre-selection of companies /consortiums/ who, having mae the investments, will cooperate in the development of coal deposit Tavan tolgoi.

The Cabinet instructed the State Property Committee Chairman D. Sugar and director of the state company "Erdenes MGL" B. Enebish to organize a tender in accordance with these documents. In July of this year the Great Hural passed a resolution on some issues of development of the Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit according to which a headed by Deputy-Prime Minister N.Altankhuyag working group was set up obliged to include this deposit into the list of strategically important deposits, to develop the draft investment agreement, to run negotiations with the companies /consortiums/ for cooperation, to draw up a list of selected companies to announce a preliminary competition for the negotiations on financial and technical conditions.

Companies /consortiums/, who have managed to enter the list of pre-selection, shall be entitled to sit at the negotiation table with this working group to discuss issues relating to investments, participation in projects of infrastructure, protection and restoration ecology, pre-payment and agreement on sharing products.

While considering the above issues, the head of the cabinet supported the proposal made by the members and advised to pay attention to several provisions. He said in particular that "the priority in the development field of Tavan Tolgoi should become not only coal transporting, but also selling and, eventually, a construction of the coking coal production industry."

He stressed that "in the selection of companies the government should follow the principle of avoiding companies with a conflict of interests." The definition "conflict of interests" applies to those companies /consortiums/ who are own a special license for development of the field Tavan tolgoi and who will work on it. "Mongolia's position should be clear and meet the interests of more than two million Mongols and not confined to just two people," he said and stressed,"any information relating to Tavan tolgoi must be open and accessible to every citizen."

S.Batbold charged heads of relevant departments to report at regular meetings of the government on progress of works related to major projects /Tavan tolgoi, Oyu tolgoi, railway construction etc/ and to inform the public about them.

S.Otgonbayar

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