Whose ore is it?
Chinese companies are not yet big direct investors in Mongolia’s mining business. Among the largest confirmed Chinese investments is a 51% stake in a zinc mine in south-eastern Mongolia, valued at m in 2004. But their interest is growing fast. Deep in the rolling hills north of Darkhan is a potentially much bigger project (though still much smaller than Ivanhoe’s). At the Tumurtei iron-ore deposit, Chinese workers have been digging out rock and sending it to China in dozens of trucks a day for the past couple of years, say locals; mainly to Baogang, China’s largest iron and steel company. Tumurtei is thought to be one of Mongolia’s biggest iron-ore deposits. But to the consternation of nationalist politicians, the state in the late 1990s granted exploitation rights to a consortium of Mongolian and Chinese companies, assisted by a .5m preferential loan from the Chinese government. Your correspondent was forbidden access to the mine. But a Chinese manager at the remote site says the Chin
