Export revenues expected to remain high
As of May 2, the world market price of gold was 1,863 USD per ounce, coal was 225 USD per ton, and copper was 9,769.5 USD per ton. Compared to a year ago, the gold price has risen by 3.9 percent and coal prices by 196.6 percent, while copper prices remained at record highs.
In addition to the world market price of coal exports, border prices are important for Mongolia. At the end of March, the border price for coal exports was 284.8 USD per ton, up by 152.8 percent from a year earlier.
Despite the decrease in the volume of Mongolia’s exports due to China’s border restrictions, the high level of commodity market prices allows for maintaining stable export earnings, according to experts. As of the end of March this year, Mongolia exported a total of 1.9 billion USD, of which 93.7 percent were mining products. Copper, coal, and iron ore exports accounted for 87 percent of all mining exports.
First quarter export earnings by year:
In the first quarter of 2021 – 1.82 billion USD In the first quarter of 2020 - 854.02 million USD In the first quarter of 2019 – 1.7 billion USD In the first quarter of 2018 – 1.37 billion USD In the first quarter of 2017 – 1.2 billion USD In the first quarter of 2016 - 992.35 million USD
Analysts predict that Mongolia’s export earnings will remain relatively high and continue to grow from year to year, with the exception of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and slumped export revenue.
In the first quarter of 2022, copper exports increased by 14 percent in volume year-on-year and by 4 percent in revenue. Coal exports reached 2.5 million tons in physical terms, down by 1.6 times from a year earlier, but revenue fell only 1 percent due to rising prices. In addition, nonmonetized gold exports surged by 10 times compared to the same period of the previous year, generating 288 million USD and contributing to the increase in export earnings.
Compared to the same period of 2021, mining exports decreased by 1.29 billion USD due to curbed volume but increased by 1.32 billion USD due to higher prices.