Mongolia Protest

On December 5th 2022, thousands of people gathered together in Mongolia's capital to protest against the rising inflation and the country's coal industry . Protesters, mostly College students, grouped together in Ulaanbaatar's Sukhbaatar Square to justify against the government.

Police were told to disperse the competition at 9 pm local time

Protesters are mainly angry at the country’s economy, with inflation going up to 15.2 percent due to the fight between Russia and Ukraine. The CEO of state-owned mining company Erdenes-Tavantolgoi JSC, Gankhuyag Battulga, was the group that got accused. They oversee an operation involving an operation of 7.5 billion tons of coking coal. Coal is the main key source of the national income; 86% of Mongolian coal goes to China. The country earns over ¼ of its domestic products from mining.

College students were mostly part of the protest because of the lack of money that the students had, they needed to pay for education and to have a working home.

Some protesters got serious and started throwing rocks and trying to break into the capitol building, but the cops were able to push them back with barriers.

In mid-November, Mongolia’s anti-corruption authority announced that over 30 officials - including the Coal mining company, were under investigation for embezzlement.

Whistleblowers have alleged that corrupt customs officials did not register the coal trucks as imported goods, but instead as a normal passenger vehicle, when they cross the borders china.

In October, it had been discovered that there was a missing coal after comparing Mongolian data, and Mongolians best buyer, China.

With everything going on, will the government lower the inflation after what happened?

Author: Daniel Cho