Chief investment strategist Dale Choi of Frontier Securities in Ulaanbaatar reported today that Mongolia’s Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy is proposing measures that would designate at least 30% of the country’s “total territory” as state reserves, for which no new exploration licences will be granted for a period of five years.
Citing an article published on June 4 in the Mongolian daily newspaper Unuudur, Choi explained that all territory designated as state reserves will be reserved for exploration by the state.
“No exploration licenses will be issued, and prohibited to do so, on state reserves, only scientific geologic research will be done,” Choi said in a research note to clients. “If mineral occurrences will be found and exploration needed, the area can be deducted from state reserves by special decision of Government. To do so, it must be introduced to Parliament, reflected in Main Socio-Economic development directions and approved.”
Choi noted that the mandate, already submitted to Parliament, was based on discussions that took place over a two-year period. In other comments by the minister of mining reported in the Mongolian daily newspaper Zuuny Medee, Choi said supervision of the mining sector “will be improved and responsibility heightened for companies for which licences have been issued.”
The strategist could not be reached for comment.
Mongolia ranked sixteenth from the bottom in the Fraser Institute’s 2011/2012 annual Policy Potential Index (PPI), a composite index measuring the overall policy attractiveness of the ninety-three jurisdictions in the survey.
Be the first to comment on "Mongolia to increase lands reserved for state"