The Government meeting yesterday discussed investor selection documents and the draft investment agreement for the Tavantolgoi deposit. These will now be sent to Ministers and the National Security Council and a final document incorporating their suggestions will be submitted to Parliament.

The investment agreement will be between the State-owned Erdenes MGL Company, the chosen investor company /consortium, and the Government of Mongolia. The investors will be foreign companies. The draft investment agreement has 19 chapters, 143 articles and two appendices.

After a company or consortium is finally chosen, it will be asked to submit documents from its side within 2 months.

As of today, Extrata (Australia), a consortium of Peabody Energy (USA) and Shenhua Energy (China), Vale (Brazil), Jindal Steel and Power (India), Sojits (Japan), Marubeni, Itochu (Japan), COPEC (South Korea), Mitsui (Japan), Sumitomo (Japan), Erdos Chinglon Coal /China/, and Russian Railway /Russia/ and others are bidding to jointly exploit the Tavantolgoi coal deposit.