Russian company ready to produce vegetable oil in Mongolia, asks for funds

Mongolia depends on imports to meet all its vegetable oil demand. A total of 26 brands from 18 countries are sold across the country. Recent checks by the State Professional Monitoring Agency have revealed that 10.8 percent of the oil was being sold beyond its shelf life. Some samples even had very harmful bacteria. This is not unexpected as some imports take more than 90 days to reach Mongolia from their place of production and then sending them to stores may take another month.

The agency then suggested to the Health and the Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Ministries to explore the possibility of producing vegetable oil in Mongolia. Initial talks have been held with the Russian-owned Mongol Altan Tos in Darkhan city which is ready to produce six types of vegetable oil, mayonnaise, margarine and ketchup. The company has the capacity to supply 100 percent of the domestic demand and still export 60 percent of its products.

Altan Tos was set up without any help from the Mongolian Government but it has said it will need money to buy the raw material. USD 6 million of the USD300 million loan from Russia could be made available to the company but nothing is final as yet.