🏆 MONGOLIA'S TOP 100 ENTERPRISES | NEWSTEX PARTNERSHIP | NBFIs

Partner with us

POWERED BY

Did somebody say summer? Now that it’s only a day away we hope that you’ve made a plan on how to spend it in a fun, but productive way. And before you start all the traveling, late night outs, or just hot and busy weeks, fill out our reader survey to help us make your experience with Inside Mongolia even better!

📌 DID YOU KNOW?

Here are some facts about your favorite summer dessert - ice cream!

• We made around 13.8 million units of ice cream products in 2021 - twice as much as the previous year. (NSO)

• Icemark LLC is the biggest ice cream producer and importer, accounting for 72% of the domestic market. (Teso)

• The company’s curd ice cream called ‘Bambar’ is, perhaps, our most iconic dessert that is considered a ‘taste of childhood’ for many people.

• Russians and Korean ice cream brands are more popular among other foreign labels.

• Soft serve is becoming increasingly popular among Mongolians. If you walk around Ulaanbaatar and other bigger cities, the chances are high that you’ll bump into at least one soft serve stand.

🤝 PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT

And so it begins…✨

We are proud to announce our new partnership with Newstex, the leading provider of high-quality news and commentary to information libraries and content marketplaces around the world. Basically, what they do is syndicate the best digital publishers that cover emerging trends in various fields and distribute the combined feed to professionals from companies like Moody’s, Reuters, and Refinitiv.

What does it mean?

• For our readers: You are now reading an internationally accepted newsletter read by specialists around the globe. More exposure means greater reliability.

• For our sponsors: You have a chance to expand your frontiers with us by reaching out to global audiences that care about your field of expertise.

An important milestone!

As one of the first Mongolian media companies to partner with such a big news aggregator known globally, we are happy to be sharing this announcement with our 1,900 subscribers. We promise to continue to work hard and dedicate ourselves to providing you with even more valuable content!

🏆 MONGOLIA'S TOP 100

Everyone checks the Fortune 500 for the leading companies in the U.S. For Mongolia, you can find the Top 100 enterprises ranked based on 5 main indicators: annual income, tax revenue, number of employees who paid social insurance, profits and assets. The list was published for the 21st time this year, with Erdenet Mining Corporation, the biggest copper mine in Central Asia with 44 years of operation, topping the list for 20 years in a row.

How big are they?

• Sales revenue: $11.3 billion, forming 82% of the country's GDP.

• Tax: $1.7 billion, almost half of Mongolia’s total tax revenue.

• There are 99.1k employees in Top 100 companies, an 8.8% of total workforce, compared to 208k civil servants.

Corporate structure

Considering how colossal their impact is on Mongolia’s economy, it is bizarre that most Top 100 companies are not listed on the MSE. Only 17 companies are public or state-owned, and the rest are private entities. 8 big groups are making up ⅓ of the companies in the Top 100, with MCS group owning 10 of these companies. However, rest assured, the top 5 banks are next in line to hold an IPO in the near future, and some state-owned companies are considering going public as well.

Market structure

The top 3 companies on the list, Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi, Oyutolgoi, and Erdenet, all in the mining sector dominated all 5 performance categories. Not only that, half of the list is made up of companies in the mining, trade and services sectors. In 2021, 18 companies joined the Top 100 list and judging from the movements, most construction, commodity-based companies such as oil and mining had a downward movement. While many foods and essentials companies such as SUU, TESO Foods, CU, Jur Ur, Talk Chikher had an upward movement.

📢 ECHOES OF THE EMPIRE: BEYOND GENGHIS KHAN

Presenting a stunning cinematic view of Mongolia’s past and present, this film will lead you through the remarkable evolution of our country that transformed into a problem-ridden post-Soviet nation from one of the greatest empires of all time.

The film director Robert H. Lieberman is a best-selling novelist and a longtime member of the Physics faculty at Cornell University. An explorer of the offbeat, the unexpected, and the unknown, he presents Mongolia as a unique place where the legacy of Genghis Khan and the remnants of the Soviet Union live in harmony within its people’s minds.

Where and when to watch?

• Screenings in Washington DC: June 3-9

• Screenings in Los Angeles: June 10-16

Tickets | Trailer

🏦 NBFIs IN A NUTSHELL

Now that people are finally free from all the quarantine regulations, they are spending more, borrowing more, and are generally requiring more financial services. This, coupled with the development of the fintech industry, pretty much explains the 69% growth in the description of the above graph and the other conspicuous increases in total revenue, expenditure and net profits it shows. Anyhow, let’s take a look at some other NBFI numbers.

The big picture

• Companies: Currently, there are as many as 529 NBFIs in Mongolia. Most of them are located in Ulaanbaatar, and only 85 - in other regions of the country. 28 of them have foreign investments, and only 4 are public companies.

• Total assets: As of the first quarter of 2022, the total assets of NBFIs increased by 42.3% compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching $1 billion, with loans accounting for 77% of that amount.

• Customers+borrowers: The total number of customers grew by 33.4%, and the number of borrowers grew by 240%.

Fintech rules

Considering only 32 companies out of all 529 NBFIs offer online services, but as much as 92.7% of all customers use their technology, it’s clear that fintech has made the NBFI sector more inclusive. Notably, 8 of these 32 companies are solely app-based, and the remaining 24 provide their customers with a combination of traditional and fintech loans and other types of financial services.

New regulations underway

The current law dates back to 2002 and has since been criticized multiple times for its obsoleteness. But the revised draft of the new Law on Non-Bank Financial Activities is finally underway and is soon to be discussed by the State Great Khural. If adopted, the following changes will take place:

• More types of activities for less permits: NBFI will be able to carry out 11 different types of financial activities with 4 different types of permits, instead of separate 11 permits.

• Fintech to be regulated: The new law will include special rules for the growing fintech industry.

• State-owned NBFIs: Currently, NBFIs with funding from the state are prohibited, but the draft of the new law doesn’t include this provision.

🏛️ DATA STORY

The total floor space of real estate sold by these companies in Q1 2022 amounted to 296.3 thousand square meters worth $91.8 million. As for renting, they helped rent 61.3 thousand square meters generating around $4.2 million in rent payments.

🏃 QUICK STORIES

📌 Warner Music Asia's regional label signs Mongolian rapper Mrs M. One of the country’s most popular artists, she represents a new generation of the Mongolian youth. Her music that mixes traditional sounds with modern hip-hop beats might really be something unique that you’ve never experienced, so give it a try! 😉

📌 Mongolia launches app on rare species of wild fauna and flora. The app “Baigali”, containing information about 3,000 species, also offers an opportunity to help our scientists. Photos uploaded by users will be received by the “Future of Mongolian Biodiversity Foundation" for further research.

📌 $100 million loan approved by World Bank’s Board of Directors. Along with a credit of $10 million from the International Development Association, the $110 million will be used to improve physical connectivity and reduce the cost of logistics for meat processing in Mongolia.

📌 Suu JSC presented with EBRD’s award for sustainability. Of a total of 79 projects from all over the world that were selected for the ‘Gender & Economic Inclusion’ category, the Mongolian dairy company received the highest evaluation, becoming the winner of the GOLD award.

☕ A GLIMPSE OF MONGOLIA

About: Suutei tsai, a.k.a. milk tea, is a traditional Mongolian beverage that’s a little salty in taste and slightly smooth in texture. Since there’s no single recipe for suutei tsai, people make it according to their preferences and family traditions. But water, tea leaves, and milk are mandatory ingredients - it’s their ratios that vary from case to case.

Tip: When you are handed a hot cup of Mongolian milk tea at someone’s home, don’t rush to put it on the table straight away. Take a sip first, even if you’re not going to finish it! This shows respect for our traditions and will probably make the hosts appreciate your visit even more. Watch this video on how to drink Mongolian milk tea.

Fun facts:

• Barley flour and butter are other frequent ingredients.

• If you add dumplings and Mongolian beef jerky to suutei tsai, you’ll get banshtai tsai - a milk soup that’s usually enjoyed on rainy days.

• Suutei tsai is also available in instant packet forms, but these have a less distinctive taste and might be very different from real Mongolian milk tea.

❗ TOP NEWS

• Land Breeze Agrees to Sell Its Interest in SouthGobi. (Yahoo! Finance)

• Turquoise Hill Acknowledges Receipt of Notice of Arbitration from Entrée Resources Ltd. (Financial Post)

• ‘Stalwart Esports’ team becomes South Asian champion. (MONTSAME)

• State-issued email addresses to be introduced this year. (MONTSAME)

• Hollywood project Godsend to film in Mongolia end of 2023. (KFTV)

• Holy See and Mongolia: 30 years of good relations. (Vatican News)