Logjam of trucks at Gashuunsukhait border crossing still not resolved, says border officials

The 100 to 150-km logjam of heavy-load trucks at the Chinese border is still persisting, reported Gashuunsukhait border officials.

Even though Cabinet has taken some measures and made efforts to hold dialogue with the Chinese government, they have not had the results that the authorities were hoping for.

Beginning in July, trucks carrying coal and other export commodities began experiencing unusually long queues to enter China.

Previously, the border crossing had the capacity to pass through 1,600 trucks daily but since July that number has dwindled down to 600. This has been caused by a double-down in border security at Gants Mod border crossing by Chinese officials, reported the sxcoal.com.

Beginning on July 1, the Chinese government restricted the import of coal through second-class border crossings and doubled-down on the regulation and security of other crossings.

In addition, the Chinese side had planned to import around 15 million tons of coking coal from the Gashuunsukhait-Gants Mod border crossing in 2017.

Due to the fact that the volume of coking coal imported to China through the border crossing has almost reached 15 million tons, the Chinese side is considering limiting and putting a quota on further imports, reported sxcoal. com.

The Chinese side is reportedly only keeping one or two gates open, whereas previously there were four operational gates processing trucks.

Cabinet estimates that around 20 to 21 million tons of coal will be exported to China through Gashuunsukhait in 2017.

In 2016, 13.9 million tons of coal was exported through the border crossing. As of August 1, 14.4 million tons of coal had already been exported, reported state owned Erdenes Mongol.

According to Reuters, exporters of other commodities have not reported any issues at the border. Copper shipments from the Oyu Tolgoi mine run by Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto, which uses the same road and border crossings for exports, have not experienced any new delays, an official at the mine told Reuters.