선거 기간 중 몽고를 여행했던 한 한국인(모 대학 모 교수)이 모든 대통령 후보들이 자기가 대통령이 되면 얼마씩 돈을 주겠다고 공약해서 후진국이라서 선거도 돈을 얼마주겠다고 하는구나라고 생각했답니다.
알래스카 방식이고요, 1년에 1천달러씩 주겠다고 했답니다. 현재 소득이 1,800달러.
몽골, 같은 인종이잖아요? 우리도 몽고반점이 있으니 기본소득 얼마 안 남았네요.
Mongolia Fund to
Manage $30 Billion Mining Jackpot (Update2)
By Bloomberg News
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The Mongolian government will set up a sovereign wealth fund using mining royalties and tax revenue, and distribute part of the income to citizens to alleviate poverty, said Finance Minister Sangajav Bayartsogt.
The fund, to be run by professional managers from 2013, will disburse part of its annual income to every Mongolian in cash or non-cash securities to let them own stakes in the country’s mining wealth, Bayartsogt said. Initial capital will be drawn from Ivanhoe Mines Ltd.’s $4 billion Oyu Tolgoi copper- gold mine project, estimated to generate $30 billion in tax revenue over 50 years, he said.
“We’re drafting the idea to implement the proposal, and we’re studying examples like the Alaskan Permanent Fund,” Bayartsogt said in a Sept. 9 interview in the capital Ulaanbaatar, declining to specify the size of the proposed fund.
Mongolia, whose 2.7 million citizens depend on mining and agriculture for half the nation’s 2008 economic output, is banking on Oyu Tolgoi and about 6,000 other mineral deposit sites to lift average annual income, which at $1,680 per person last year was ranked 151st in the world by the World Bank.
“If the government can pull this off, we can expect lasting stability and growth in Mongolia, because this fund can help stabilize the economy and help fend off the boom and burst of the commodity-price cycles,” said Erdenedalai Choinkhor, an economist at Frontier Securities Co. in Ulaanbaatar.
Oil, Gas Money
The $40 billion Alaska Permanent Fund, created in 1976 with state revenue from oil production, has constitutionally protected capital that can’t be spent. Most of its earnings are reinvested, and a dividend is returned each year to eligible Alaskans. The fund reported a $6.3 million loss in 2001 after buying 685,600 shares in Enron Corp.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the 2.47 trillion-krone ($410 billion) Government Pension Fund - Global, derives money from taxes on oil and gas and ownership of petroleum fields. The oil and gas money is invested abroad to avoid stoking domestic inflation.
Mongolia also wants to diversify the economy’s reliance on animal husbandry and mining to avoid the so-called Dutch Disease, where a commodity boom sucks in foreign exchange, raises the currency’s value and makes manufacturing less competitive.
“If mining is booming, the rest of the sectors will slow down because people are expecting to receive work and revenue from mining,” Bayartsogt said. “We will use revenue from mining to develop the processing industry, invest in outsourcing, education, science and technology to move up the value chain and transform the economy.”
Transforming Mongolia
Bayartsogt’s Democratic Party and the opposition Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party pledged during May general elections to distribute as much as $6 billion, or up to 1.5 million tugriks ($1,060) for every citizen, from the country’s mining wealth.
To fulfill the election pledge, the government may use a $250 million pre-payment from Oyu Tolgoi to seed its distribution program, Bayartsogt said. The final accord to develop the Oyu Tolgoi deposits may be signed this month, Minister of Minerals and Energy Dashdorj Zorigt said this week.
“The transformational power of the Oyu Tolgoi mine cannot be understated,” said Peter Morrow, chief executive officer of the Khan Bank in Ulaanbaatar. Investments in Oyu Tolgoi are projected at almost 80 percent of Mongolia’s $5 billion economy, he said.
Oyu Tolgoi Deposits
Oyu Tolgoi may hold as much as 32 million tons of copper and 1,200 tons of gold, according to government estimates. Annual output when the mines are excavated may top 450,000 tons of copper with 330,000 ounces of gold, Zorigt said.
“The ordinary people are expecting something” to be distributed to them as soon as Oyu Tolgoi is signed, Bayartsogt said. “The expectation is too high. Economics is always connected to politics.”
The Oyu Tolgoi deposits, discovered by Ivanhoe in 2003, have gone through a sometimes tumultuous development process. Mongolia’s government on Aug. 25 passed laws allowing companies to carry forward their losses for eight years, build private roads and let Oyu Tolgoi developers use water they find on their land. The parliament will also repeal from Jan. 1, 2011, a 68 percent windfall profit tax on copper and gold.
The nation’s 6,000 known mineral deposit sites include reserves of coal, uranium, silver, zinc and molybdenum.
“It’s the beginning, an experiment in how to structure a large mining-exploration agreement with the world,” said Terence Ortslan, managing director of TSO & Associates, a Montreal, Canada-based research firm focusing on mining. “Five years from now, Oyu Tolgoi will be in operation, and other projects will be under way.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Eugene Tang in Ulaanbaatar on eugenetang@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 11, 2009 10:15 EDT