Local businesses say contracts with mine secure jobs and growth
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (ot.mn) – Two local businesses in Khanbogd Soum spoke out last week on Oyu Tolgoi’s commitment to growing local businesses.
Sh.Tuya, who runs a sewing shop in Khanbogd, said Oyu Tolgoi is providing a low interest loan so that she can build a new workshop and double the size of her business. “We are confident in our future cooperation with Oyu Tolgoi and that’s why I made the commitment to expand”, she said.
Sh.Tuya, director of Ulziit Munkh Ovoo LLC, started her business in 2007 and now employs eight people, with one worker based in Ulaanbaatar. In 2010 she started working with Oyu Tolgoi and now the firm supplies the bulk of her business, with a contract worth 40,000,000 MNT per year to provide uniforms.
She said her goal was to create an industry in Khanbogd, as competition was the best way for the town to grow.
M.Togtokhbayar, one of the workers at Demchig Ur Khiits LLC, the thriving carpentry shop in Khanbogd, said contracts from Oyu Tolgoi had created good jobs with good salaries at the firm. The carpentry workshop opened in 2009 to manufacture woodworks and woodenwares and has been constantly expanding. Since the first order in 2009, this growing workshop has manufactured products worth 80 million MNT in total.
Cameron McRae, Oyu Tolgoi CEO, said: “The workers of Khanbogd Soum are benefiting from our presence as we are benefiting from theirs. Mongolia produces some of the best craftsmen and artisans anywhere in the world. I look forward to these firms growing alongside us.”
About Oyu Tolgoi LLC
Oyu Tolgoi LLC is Mongolia's largest copper and gold mining company and is a strategic partnership between the Government of Mongolia (34 per cent stake), Ivanhoe Mines (66 per cent) and Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto is the major shareholder in Ivanhoe Mines and the manager of the Oyu Tolgoi project. In addition to dividends from its 34 per cent stake in Oyu Tolgoi, the Government of Mongolia will receive taxes and royalties.
Oyu Tolgoi, located in the Gobi desert in southern Mongolia, will be one of the largest and highest-grade copper and gold mines in the world. It is the largest project ever developed in Mongolia, requiring a capital investment for phase 1 of more than US$6 billion.
Oyu Tolgoi is committed to contributing to a sustainable future for Mongolia. At least 9 out of 10 employees will be Mongolian once the mine is in production and Oyu Tolgoi is investing US$58 million dollars (78 billion tugriks) in training and education and an additional US$27 million dollars (36 billion tugriks) in the Workforce Employment Project designed to help address the general skills shortage in Mongolia
Oyu Tolgoi"s key priorities are the health and safety of employees, best-practice environmental management, contributing to sustainable communities and always doing business with integrity, for the benefit of all the project"s shareholders and the people of Mongolia.
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