A traffic-jam up to 130 kms long, in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. They're heavy-duty trucks laden with coal waiting to cross the Chinese border, in a journey that can take more than a week:
[Photos: Rentsendorj Bazarsukh / Reuters]
Truckers cook, eat and sleep in vehicles covered in coal dust, many subsisting on the same meat soup that fuelled Genghis Khan's Mongol Horde more than eight centuries ago.
A rebound in coal prices and a surge in exports to China this year has meant a bonanza for miners in Mongolia, and a vital lifeline for the country's tiny economy, after a currency and debt crisis forced it to seek an economic rescue package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).Alongside the trucks a bustling microeconomy has sprung up of traders peddling cigarettes, water and diesel as drivers wait to clear Chinese customs in a queue that can stretch for 130 kilometres (80 miles).
But long delays at the Gashuun Sukhait-Gants Mod crossing, the main transit point between the two countries, are undercutting those gains as fleets of trucks carrying coal from Gobi desert mines to China pile up at the border.
The long delays have been blamed on a surge in traffic driven by the thriving cross-border coal trade. However, Mongolia's inability to stop rampant smuggling across the border has also played a role as China has imposed more stringent checks on incoming deliveries in recent months.
But wait . . . didn't Obama and Thomas Friedman tell us that the Chinese are leading the world in the switch to renewables? Something here doesn't compute.
Posted by: djf | November 20, 2017 at 10:05 PM