The Mongolian Prime Minister wants
Australia to be a “”third neighbor”” that can help develop his country”s
massive resource deposits and balance its strategic and economic vulnerability
to China. S.Batbold, formerly a successful businessman, will make new overtures
to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Australian corporate leaders on Wednesday.
“”We have a concept of “third neighbor” and we”d like to see a balance,””
Batbold told The Age of Australia in Ulaanbaatar before leaving for an
official visit to Australia.
Today, Batbold visits the Australian
Stock Exchange which, he says, should play a larger role in raising capital for
junior Mongolian mining companies. He wants to adapt Australia”s experience in
privatizing Telstra to issue resource company shares to every citizen.
He would also like to see Australia
establish an embassy in Mongolia, extend co-operation on agriculture and deepen
a scholarship program that has educated several “”Mozzies”” – Mongolian alumni
from Australian universities – who have gone on to leadership roles.
“”We”d like to see the success
Australia has made out of mineral resources first with technology, mining
experience, the environment and safety but, more importantly, in sharing the
benefits and the experience of governance,”” he said. “”We don”t want to be
just an exporter of raw materials.””
Companies that stand to benefit from
Mongolia”s desire to increase Australian influence include miner Rio Tinto,
mining contractor Leightons and possibly Fortescue, whose embattled chief
executive Andrew Forrest was scheduled to meet Batbold in Sydney today.
Earlier,
Batbold told a senior official of Xstrata that Mongolia wanted to pursue
responsible mining. He showed interest in how Xstrata runs its coal mining
operations, particularly issues related to infrastructure, organization,
marketing and management.
Chinese companies appear to have
been effectively excluded from investing in “”strategic”” resource deposits and
some have had existing assets “”nationalized””, particularly in the gold and
uranium sectors.
