BCM’s monthly meeting on February 28 was attended by 80 members. Mr. Peter Morrow, founding Board Chairman and Executive Committee member, was in the chair. Executive Director Jim Dwyer reported that two members of BCM's Tax Working Group have been appointed members of the task force at the National Tax Authority with the mission to improve tax laws. BCM membership now stood at 159, a 25% year-on-year increase. The three newest members are

1. ING Bank, a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services. The corporate and investment banking arm of the company operates out of a representative office in Ulaanbaatar and provides clients with a range of products and services in the areas of project finance, trade and commodity finance, debt capital markets, and initial public offerings.

2. XacBank, a community development bank and microfinance institution headquartered in Ulaanbaatar. It provides equitable access to transparent, reliable and responsive banking products and services to clients, including micro-entrepreneurs as well as small and medium businesses.

3. Energy Resources, which owns and operates the Ukhaa Khudag deposit, and is one of the largest coking coal producers of the country with potential and outreach to sustain a successful development model at an international level. Its shareholders include MCS, Petrovis, the Shunkhlai Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Mongolian Mining, ER’s parent company, raised approximately USD700 million in its highly successful IPO on the HKEx in October 2010.

Mr. Layton Croft, a founding BCM Board member, updated all on his January move to Peabody Energy as head of International Government Relations Asia. Peabody, the world's largest coal company, was a Platinum Sponsor of this week’s Mongolian Economic Forum and will join BCM as member.

The first presentation of the evening was by Mr. Kh. Altai, Acting Executive Director, Mongolian Stock Exchange (MSE). He mentioned some salient features of the recent agreement between the MSE and the London Stock Exchange and said a clearer picture of how the MSE would be restructured will emerge only after a Master Service Agreement is signed in April.

Mr. A. Bilguun, Executive Director, Prime Info LLC, spoke on the McCloskey Mongolia Coal & Infrastructure Conference 2011, scheduled for April 7 and 8. The event for producers, traders, financiers, logistics operators, and buyers is still under preparation but speakers and partners have been confirmed.

Mr. S. Munkhsukh, CEO, Eznis Airways, described the huge scope for developing the aviation sector in Mongolia and how such growth would impact the economy and other businesses. A job in aviation creates 5-8 other jobs and USD1 invested in the sector generates USD8.7 in revenue for other businesses. Eznis has a zero-accident and zero-incident track record and the two new aircraft it plans to acquire to augment its present fleet of 4 have been specially chosen for their ability to be operational on limited runways.