Ulaanbaatar Railway has unveiled its first ever express train travel on the route from the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar to Ulan-Ude, the capital city of the Russian Republic of Buryatia and from there to Irkutsk in Siberia, passing Lake Baikal en route.

Earlier today (12 December), the Mongolian National Statistical Office (NSO) issued the 2017 social and economic index data. According to the statistics, a total of 606.3 thousand employees from 38 thousand enterprises paid social security and health taxes.

A herd of Mongolian gazelles has returned to Uvs Provice, in the western part of Mongolia after sixty years. The animals have migrated from the Khom steppe of neighbouring Zavkhan Province.

Two fractions of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) held separate congresses at the weekend (9-10 December).

Vancouver-based miner Turquoise Hill (TSX:TRQ) is expecting its majority-owned Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia to churn in 2018 more than double the amount of the precious metal forecast for this year, with operating costs dropping about 2.8%.

Luxury goods companies have increasingly opted to source their cashmere from Mongolia. As a result, the country’s exports of cashmere garments have nearly tripled from 2009 to 2016, according to a 2017 report by the Mongolia International Capital Corp. (MICC), a regional investment bank.

Several Mongolian eco-beauty brands are developing a new use for the tens of millions of yaks, goats and sheep on Mongolia’s vast steppes – a range of organic cosmetics and skin creams, often based on traditional recipes that are rapidly attracting attention from foreign buyers.

They say that it is better to give than receive. Mongolian Model-Actress A.Bayartsetseg decided to celebrate her 27th birthday on 3 December by doing a good deed for a poor family.

As of November, in 2017 Mongolia exported USD 1.9 billion worth of coal, practically all of it (USD 1.86 million) going to China. This represents a three-fold increase in Mongolian coal export revenue on the previous year with the country benefiting from global price increase and an upturn in the Chinese economy.

Louis Saha, the former French forward of Manchester United F.C arrived in Ulaanbaatar earlier today (11 December). The 39 year-old star has been invited to participate in the Mongolian Football Federation’s ‘Golden Ball’ award ceremony which will be held on 12 December.