Mongolia signs huge copper deal
MONGOLIA is set to become a leading copper exporter after signing an agreement to develop a huge deposit near the Chinese border.
The country has signed up with mining companies including Rio Tinto to mine Oyu Tolgoi, a copper-gold deposit in the south Gobi desert.
The project’s earnings stand to make up one third of the country’s gross domestic product and produce 450,000 tonnes of copper a year once its nine-year, $4bn (£2.5bn) construction is complete. That compares with 1.2m tonnes produced last year at the world’s largest copper mine.