Executive Director Jim Dwyer told the monthly meeting, held on March 22 with Mr. Laurenz Melchers in the chair, that BCM membership had reached an all-time high of 133, surpassing the 131 at the end of last year. Of them, 71 were present. The newest members are Transwest, a mining service providing company, Air Trans, a plane ticketing agency, and Khurai Co. a hard rock gold exploration entity.

There has been a significant growth in the number of people visiting the BCM Web page. They are spread over 60 countries. In recent weeks, the number of those accessing the English-language page has risen 45%, while that of those going for the Mongolian section has grown 62%, with the mining database a special attraction. The groups are also busy and the seventh one, on the Environment, has now been properly constituted, with Ms. Meloney Lindberg of The Asia Foundation at its head. With funding from GTZ, the Capital Markets Group is arranging for 12 Government officials to visit the Frankfurt Bourse.  It has also requested the Prime Minister to have a meeting with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange chief when he comes to Ulaanbaatar shortly.

In a brief talk, Mr. D.Damba, the new President of the Mongolian National Mining Association, said MNMA plans to institute some structural changes and also involve other sectors in its activity. It would also like to have wider and stronger cooperation with organizations like Responsible Mining and The Asia Foundation. Its agenda for 2010 includes “aggressive lobbying” for a lowering of the tax threshold, improving the legal improvement, and making legislation enforceable. A priority area will be to seek changes in three laws adopted last year that are negatively impacting the mining industry.

Mr. Damba said few MPs were knowledgeable about the complexities of the industry and MNMA would seek to redress “this serious problem”  by persuading them to receive and weigh advice from professional bodies before taking decisions.

Mr. Damba and Mr. Melchers then signed, amidst applause, a memorandum of agreement on BCM and MNMA extending their collaboration in the coming days.

Mr. George Tumur, Managing Director of Perth-based Hunnu Coal, gave a presentation detailing their “aggressive exploration plans” in several areas of Mongolia before reaching a target of extracting 500 million tons of coal annually.

Another presentation was by Mr. G. Temuulen, Deputy Director of Erdenes MGL, standing in for the company’s  General Director , Mr. B.Enebish.  He spoke of the State-owned company’s goal of “maximizing the benefits of the mining boom” for Mongolia.