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Andrew G. Racz  
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April 4, 2008

"The Mongolian Manifesto"

In the coming few days or weeks, or maybe months, an agreement will be drawn up between the government of Mongolia and the so-called Ivanhoe Group, which consists of the Rio Tinto, the second largest mining company in the world, Ivanhoe, a Canadian and Australian mineral and energy conglomerate, and Entree Gold, a small Vancouver-based but cash-rich small company. The agreement basically will divide up key Mongolian assets, particularly gold and copper between the producing companies and the government of Mongolia.

It is one of the financial world's most famous and certainly longest negotiations. Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe are negotiating for about four years. Granted, the issues are great. It is a mining project that can produce up to $4 billion copper and gold per annum, and the world's commodity market is on the up-trend.

To date, the global investors are carefully watching what's happening with the Oyu Tolgoi investment agreement.

Your government is on the eve of signing the agreement. You have stated personally that you are committed to approving the agreement for Oyu Tolgoi in the present form as had been negotiated.

If we assume that the agreement is going to be a permanent agreement and not an armistice, as Winston Churchill described correctly the Versailles agreement of 1919, if the agreement is a lasting agreement, it will be and should be compared to the historical examples. No one disagrees that the tremendous mineral wealth of a small country should be structured in such a way that it creates prosperity at home and permanence for the entire world. After all, Mongolia will be one of the world's largest gold producers.

Current gold reserves are estimated:

The year 2008 is actually celebrating the replacement of Oil with Gold as the world's most important commodity. After all, when oil hit $100, the oil intrigue as a national policy was over. At $100 per barrel, whoever has oil will sell and whoever has money will buy. If Iraq and Venezuela want to hold back oil production, they can do so if mistaken leaders like to play a joke with the West but can also lose customers at the expense of domestic revolution.

But in Gold we trust. The international money supply created by oil and other commodities plays a non-stop oscillation between paper currencies. We even created the Euro which has no backing.

The United States recently had a sub-prime crisis. Wait until the world has a Euro crisis.
HENCE, GOLD.

The world's monetary crisis would then best be described by Bernard Shaw's updated version, "Man and Superman".

The most important attempt to monopolize oil actually didn't even happen. In 1939, a German general named Rommel convinced Hitler that if he attacked Russia and goes through Stalingrad and occupies the Baku oil fields in the Caucasus, and at the same time if Rommel lands in Africa and drives the British out of Egypt and blocks the Mediterranean sea routes, then Germany would have the dominant position in the world's oil business and that would have been tantamount to the defeat of the British empire.

Major attempts to monopolize key minerals have been in the minds of many dictators. The United States actually elected the peaceful route, and President Roosevelt on his way back from Yalta in 1945, met on a ship the King of Saudi Arabia and set Middle East policy and agreements for the Saudi oil billions for generations to come. The Iranian oil was much more in British hands. In the early 1950's Prime Minister Mossadigu of Iran kicked out the Shah of Iran, who was reinstated by the CIA. The oil supply of the West, and in fact the world, was safe until the 1973 so-called Yom Kippur war.

In each case, the players of an agreement were the same. You had the country where oil is produced, you have the foreign companies who actually bring the oil to the surface and then markets it all over the world, and there is a production agreement which occasionally lasts for a few years, occasionally for decades.

The volatility of oil which has increased from $1.00 in 1968 to $100 in 2008, in about forty years, has created many upheavals simply because the importance of the most important energy source and because of the desire to change the equation from one year to another. This was called: Oil Policy. The greatest players were the Shah of Iran, Nixon, Paul Getty and Aristotle Onassis.

History can record that the so-called Gulf States -- Abu Dhabi and Dubai -- have elected the peaceful route and set a percentage of ownership and profit participation in a peaceful manner. This enabled the world to receive a constant supply of oil from the United States to China and India and France and England, in return for the accumulation of tremendous wealth in the hands of countries like the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Mongolians should study the above-mentioned examples. People in Qatar, people in Abu Dhabi, people in Dubai and Saudi Arabia have a prosperous and Westernized life. They benefit from the production sharing agreements, but at the same time they built a highly attractive life for themselves, modernized their country, and brought in not only Western civilization but they brought in a banking empire whose money today makes major decisions over the lives of every stock markets.

Countries that want to exploit the desire for oil and resort to barbaric techniques, such as Iraq. They have several decades of regression and partial destruction of their own country. The lesson is, and that's the lesson from the 1991 Gulf War, that vital mineral wealth is vital not only for one country but for the world, and when greed or aggrandizement comes into the picture, military equipment is delivered to vital points and instead of prosperity, destruction follows.

The world cannot live without oil, minerals and they cannot live without gold. This is an evolution. The importance of gold as a monetary metal and as a commodity has been evolving ever since really the Second World War. Gold became a currency because the working population of the world demanded more and more currencies, stable currencies, and because of the instability of the world of currencies, gold emerged to safeguard the assets and savings of mankind.

The negotiators in Ulaanbaatar may not have studied monetary theories, but it is imperative for them to understand the current and future importance of gold for their new historical development. Mongolia is theoretically and practically in the year 2008 where Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and actually the whole Middle East, was in 1945. An American president whom everybody trusted, on a ship on the Mediterranean, a few weeks before he died, established an oil policy which certainly helped the entire world to recover from the horrors of the Second World War.

The Mongolian government must understand that they are in possession of approximately now 50 million ounces of gold and the possibility exists that it will become 100 million ounces in the next five years. This tremendous hoard of gold, 100 million ounces, represents a value of $100 billion, but if the price of gold goes to $2,000 it would represent $200 billion.

What if gold goes to $5,500?

Comparing the price of gold with the value of the Dow-Jones Industrial:

Gold at $5,500 an ounce! This would buy the Dow at a multiple of 2!

As we go along the rest of this decade and enter the next one, the control and the production of a potential $200 billion value easily can misdirect the attention of any government, of people, of individuals who want to break the spirit of decency.

The importance of these gold deposits is relatively more important for Mongolia than the oil deposits of Saudi Arabia, but it's future history may evolve along the same lines. First and foremost, Mongolia must learn that their gold hoards on an annualized basis will five or six years from now produce a million ounces a year, which at $1,500 per ounce basis would be a sum of $1.5 billion. This is vital for Mongolia, whose gross national product today is only $2 billion. But at the same time, it's vital and important in the world's gold production totality, where it represents a 15 percent increase in the world's gold supply per annum.

Furthermore, the Mongolian government and the Mongolian intelligentsia, together with its financial advisors, must understand that their little country, even though it represents the sixth largest territory in the world, would be a major gold producing country, a major banking country in the Far East. And if its diplomacy is as intelligent as let's say the government of Dubai, it is going to play an important role in the international monetary front and with the banking nations such as Switzerland.

History may re-name Mongolia East of Dubai, east of Switzerland.

The most immediate task they face is to divide up the ownership and production sharing agreement with the Ivanhoe Group. If the Mongolians insist on a 51 percent ownership, then every party has to pay for the capital expenditures. If the capital expenditures of the producing companies, the Ivanhoe Group, is paid back, the division of ownership will be a subject of negotiation.

The last few months brought a tremendous relief for the negotiations. The original 32 million ounces of gold reserves has increased to 46 million, and the price of gold has gone up from $700 to $1,000, and many expert predictions lead to a $1,500 per ounce of gold price. In other words, the extra value of the gold reserves enables the negotiators to make practical agreements as the extra revenue based increased to such a level that certain arguments are absolutely unnecessary. The increased revenue base automatically can take care of it.

At that time, I would like to refer to other historical examples. In Versailles, Europe was divided in such a blunder that in less than three years Hitler was marching in the streets of Munich demanding the re-establishment of the old borders. In ten years' time, by 1933, he became Chancellor, and the Versailles Agreement, which was attended by the President of the United States, French prime minister Clemenceau, and British prime minister Lloyd George, practically didn't exist. In fact, in 1939 Mr. Churchill stated before the outbreak of the Second World War, that "Herr Hitler tore up the pieces".

Ulaanbaatar in 2008 shouldn't become another Versailles. In order to achieve the opposite, the stability of these current negotiations is basically what I call The Mongolian Manifesto. The 2008 negotiations must assure that the agreement could survive. The agreement is not oil but gold. The agreement is not a legal document, but basically a permanent banking document.

History will prove that major international banks retain the relationship with one another for decades. Banking agreements, if they change drastically and unilaterally, can only lead to catastrophe. A small nation of 2.5 million cannot tolerate a breakdown of a banking agreement, cannot tolerate confiscation of property, cannot tolerate nationalization, and cannot change. Bankers don't change arrangements from one year to another. Mongolia, the Mongol gold, the Mongol mineral assets, need stability and agreements which can survive for decades.

I have actually made a practical proposition. The proposition is that we establish a company, probably in London, which would own all the gold Mongolia has and will have in the future. The company, which is obviously going to be public, has stockholders. The Mongol government is a stockholder, the Ivanhoe Group is a stockholder. Since they have different interests, you have A shares for the Mongol government and B shares for the Ivanhoe Group. When production starts and profit accumulates in the company, then the Mongol interest can pay a dividend to itself every year according to its needs, without selling their shares. If the price of gold eventually goes to $5,000, then it pays a dividend to itself from future potential income and lives like an old-fashioned Coupon Clipping Capitalist.

Actually, let me say this. The Ulaanbaatar agreement which is coming would really be successful if the Mongolian government settles down as Bernard Shaw said, to middle class mediocrity and becomes a coupon clipping capitalist.

A $50 billion market cap gold company, which I have in mind, can provide three benefits.

There is no reason that Mongolia couldn't become an important nation. I see its future between Dubai and Switzerland, Dubai because it's the growth of its cash reserves, particularly if it's converted into securities, and Switzerland because of the cash accumulation of the country when all its reserves -- copper, uranium, molybdenum -- are properly exploited.

There is no reason why a public company cannot be floated on Mongolian copper or uranium. There is no reason why the Mongolian stock exchange couldn't benefit from the various flotations I have mentioned.

I have inquired, by the way, of a Hungarian bank, CIG, in Budapest, the second largest bank, whose stock market expertise can be utilized to modernize the stock exchange in Mongolia.

Of course, there is a lot of work ahead. It is the first small mineral-rich country that is being born peacefully, and if I could advise the government, it should not only be born peacefully but remain peaceful with its sponsors, workers, partners and customers.

Let us look at the alternatives. North Korea, born after the Second world War and entangled in a useless destructive war by 1950. North Vietnam, at war with neighbors, colonial powers, the United States, from 1946 until 1975. There were two and a half million people dead. Today, a Vietnam of 80 million people is highly successful merchant banking center of the Far East. Kuwait, invaded by Iraq and 1990 and survived only because of the courtesy of the first President Bush. Venezuela, captured by a dictator a few years ago, 20 percent inflation, people are escaping from the country, and a government which is seeking more foreign involvement for destructive purposes on a daily basis. And finally, Cuba, since 1959 not only under a dictatorship but a poverty-stricken dictatorship despite the tremendous production based in tobacco, sugar and wheat.

We have examples of what happens when a small country is setting its own political vision untried in history and, in fact, defeated by democratic forces. Mongolia not only has to make peace and get on with the production of raising a nation into philosophical and industrial and sociological heights, but it is a country that can occupy a place which is almost the picture of a visionary.

Visionaries unfortunately often create the signs of destruction. This is the question this month and next month in Mongolia. Stabilize the monetary assets, increase the benefits of the incoming monetary assets, and what is absolutely vital, convert the new wealth of the country into conventional stock market and banking assets. If Mongolia succeeds in negotiating an agreement, not the one which the West blundered in Versailles but a creative one, and if it realizes that mineral ownership today has to be converted to stocks, companies, stock market listings, banking relationships and banking assets, then I could hope today when I can interview the prime minister and the cabinet and write an honest thesis, "The Mongolian Manifesto".

Where Wilson in 1919, Roosevelt in 1945, Kennedy in 1961 failed -- Mongolia's Ulaanbaatar could prevail in 2008.