================================================================================ MONGOLIA FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT Parliament of Mongolia (State Great Khural / Улсын Их Хурал), 126-Member Khural, 2026 Session Prepared by Imran Cooper, The Amanuensis May 2026 VERIFICATION NOTES: MONGOLIAN FISCAL AND PROGRAMME FRAMEWORK (verified 2025-2026): - Mongolia: population approximately 3.6 million (National Statistics Office of Mongolia year-end December 2025; CEIC Data); 3.5 million at year-end December 2024. Land area 1.566 million km², the world's 18th-largest country and the most sparsely populated sovereign state on Earth at approximately 2.3 persons per km². Landlocked between the Russian Federation (north) and the People's Republic of China (south). - 21 aimags (provinces): Arkhangai, Bayan-Ölgii, Bayankhongor, Bulgan, Darkhan-Uul, Dornod, Dornogovi, Dundgovi, Govi-Altai, Govisümber, Khentii, Khovd, Khövsgöl, Ömnögovi, Orkhon, Övörkhangai, Selenge, Sükhbaatar, Töv, Uvs, Zavkhan; plus Ulaanbaatar capital city (separate first-level administrative unit with nine districts). Approximately 330 soums (districts) and 1,664 baghs (sub-districts) below the aimag level. - Currency: Mongolian Tögrög / Tugrik (MNT). - State Great Khural (Улсын Их Хурал): unicameral parliament of Mongolia in the Government Palace on Sukhbaatar Square, Ulaanbaatar. Constitutional Reform of 31 May 2023 enlarged the Khural from 76 to 126 members and introduced a mixed electoral system (78 multi-member-constituency seats + 48 proportional- representation seats), effective for the 28 June 2024 general election. Speaker as of 2026-05: Dashzegve Amarbayasgalan (Mongolian People's Party). - 28 June 2024 general election: Mongolian People's Party (MPP) won 68 of 126 seats. Democratic Party (DP) saw its largest gain since 1996 as principal opposition. Coalition government. - 2025-2026 Cabinet rotation: Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun- Erdene resigned May 2025 amid street protests and corruption allegations against his son. Gombojavyn Zandanshatar appointed PM June 2025; resigned after a confidence vote in October 2025 after four months in office. On 30 March 2026 the State Great Khural elected Speaker Nyam-Osoryn Uchral as Prime Minister with 88 of 107 votes; new ministerial lineup announced 3 April 2026. Current Prime Minister as of 2026-05: Nyam-Osoryn Uchral. - President of Mongolia: Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh (Mongolian People's Party), inaugurated 25 June 2021 for a single six-year term per constitutional reform. - Constitution of Mongolia (Монгол Улсын Үндсэн хууль): adopted 13 January 1992; entered into force 12 February 1992. Constitutional amendments adopted 14 November 2019 (parliamentary system strengthening) and 31 May 2023 (Khural enlargement and mixed electoral system). Article 1 declares Mongolia a sovereign, independent, democratic republic; Article 5 establishes a multi- sector economy with private property rights and state regulation in the public interest; Article 6 declares natural resources (land, subsoil, forests, water, wildlife) as the property of the state and the people. - Minister of Finance: per current Cabinet list (verify at execution time given recent rotation). - Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry: per current Cabinet list. - Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry: per current Cabinet list. SOVEREIGN-ASSET, BANKING, AND STATE-ENTERPRISE CHASSIS (verified 2025-2026): - Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund (Чингис хаан Үндэсний баялгийн сан, swf.gov.mn): established under the Sovereign Wealth Fund Law in force 9 May 2024 as a three-tiered structure: (i) Future Heritage Fund (Ирээдүйн өв сан), long-term savings and investment for future generations, the principal long-horizon vehicle, holding MNT 4 trillion (approximately USD 1.2 billion) by December 2024; (ii) Development Fund, allocated to national development projects and strategic economic initiatives; (iii) Savings Fund, set aside for direct citizen benefit, accessible to all Mongolian citizens through the E-Mongolia platform, with MNT 495 billion deposited as of late 2024 = MNT 135 thousand per citizen. Governed by a Board of Directors and the State Great Khural appropriations process. The Savings Fund tier already operates direct per-capita distribution to every Mongolian citizen (operational precedent at population scale). - Erdenes Mongol LLC (erdenesmongol.mn): state-owned holding company that manages Mongolia's strategic mineral assets on behalf of the Government of Mongolia. Subsidiaries include Erdenes Oyu Tolgoi LLC (en.eot.mn, 34 percent Mongolian stake in the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine, with Rio Tinto holding the operating majority), Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC (coking coal, the country's largest coking-coal operation in the South Gobi), Erdenes Baganuur (coal, supplies the Ulaanbaatar CHP plants), and Erdenes Shivee Ovoo (coal). Erdenes Mongol Group Strategy 2025 (issued May 2025) outlined revised operational and management structure for the state mining portfolio under the Government's 2024-2028 Action Plan including 14 mega-projects. - Development Bank of Mongolia (DBM, dbm.mn): state-owned policy lender for infrastructure, industry, and strategic-sector lending. Convenes the "Development Financing Solutions for Mongolia" conference series jointly with the Ministry of Economy and Development at the Investor Protection Center. - Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia (TDB / TDBM, tdbm.mn): the oldest commercial bank in Mongolia, initially established as a 100 percent state-owned enterprise that historically served as Mongolia's Development Bank, facilitating international investments, financing, and bonds. Signed a finance agreement with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) on 30 September 2024, a first-time direct correspondence of Mongolian banking and financial institutions with the U.S. Government agency. - Bank of Mongolia (Монголбанк): the central bank of Mongolia established under the Law on the Central Bank of Mongolia. Independence preserved. Monetary policy mandate preserved. ENERGY-SECTOR CHASSIS (verified 2025-2026): - Mongolia's electricity generation: approximately 90 percent coal- fired (UNDP Mongolia, 2024-2025), dominated by Soviet-era centralised combined heat and power (CHP) plants concentrated in Ulaanbaatar. Principal generation assets: Ulaanbaatar CHP-2, CHP-3, CHP-4 (the dominant urban-grid generators; CHP-4 the largest, serving the bulk of Ulaanbaatar electricity and district heating); Darkhan CHP and Erdenet CHP (regional). - Central Energy System (CES): the principal national electricity grid operated under the Ministry of Energy. Smaller western and southern regional systems serve aimags outside the CES coverage. - Coal supplies: primarily from Baganuur and Shivee Ovoo (Erdenes Mongol subsidiaries) and from Tavan Tolgoi (Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC). Coal contributed significantly to Mongolian export revenue in 2023. - Just Energy Transition Forum Mongolia (JET Forum): convened in Ulaanbaatar on 27 June 2025, bringing together public, private, and international stakeholders on the coal-to-renewables pathway. - Renewable potential: world-class wind and solar resources in the Gobi Desert and Khangai region; constrained by the centralised coal-CHP-based heating-and-electricity coupling inherited from the Soviet era and by the Ulaanbaatar winter air-pollution context driven by coal combustion in heating-only households. DISTRIBUTION INFRASTRUCTURE (verified 2025-2026): - E-Mongolia platform (e-mongolia.mn): the Government of Mongolia unified digital-services portal launched by the Cabinet Secretariat and the Communications and Information Technology agencies. Aggregates more than 1,000 government services in a single citizen-facing interface. Approximately 2 million active users out of the ~3.6 million total population. The Savings Fund tier of the Chinggis Khaan SWF already distributes MNT 135 thousand per citizen directly through E-Mongolia (operational precedent at population scale). - National Civil ID (Иргэний бүртгэлийн дугаар, IBD): administered through the General Authority for State Registration (Улсын бүртгэлийн ерөнхий газар). Each Mongolian citizen carries a unique personal-identification number for civil, banking, tax, and government-service purposes. - National Statistics Office of Mongolia (Үндэсний Статистикийн Хороо, 1212.mn): administers the national-statistics framework and publishes population, employment, household, and economic statistics. INDIGENOUS COOPERATIVE TRADITION (verified 2025-2026): - Pastoral cooperative tradition: one of the longest-surviving continuous cooperative-economic structures on Earth, dating to pre-Chinggis steppe-confederation antecedents and formalised in modern Mongolian law through (i) the Soviet-era negdel collective-herder cooperatives that operated 1956-1991 and provide direct institutional precedent for collective herd management; (ii) the post-1991 reconstitution of voluntary herder cooperatives; (iii) contemporary Pasture User Groups (PUGs) at the bagh and soum levels, coordinated through soum-level Pasture User Committees and aimag-level Aimag Pasture User Committees (APUCs) established in 13 aimags, and the national-level Mongolian National Federation of Pasture User Groups (greenmongolia.mn) and the Mongolian Society for Range Management (MSRM, msrm.mn). - 2025 Herder Law reform: established multi-tiered associations at the soum (district), aimag (province), and national levels to facilitate coordination, advocacy, and support for the primary herder associations. - Mongolian Red Cross Society (mrcs.org.mn): the principal Mongolian humanitarian organisation; operates emergency-response, blood-donation, and social-services programmes across the aimags. CULTURAL, CONSTITUTIONAL, AND HISTORICAL ANCHORS (verified 2025-2026): - Chinggis Khaan (1162-1227): founder of the Mongol Empire, originator of the Yassa codified-law tradition, the Pax Mongolica intercontinental trade and security order, and the Ortoq merchant-association precursor of modern cooperative- investment instruments. The Chinggis Khaan name is carried in the sovereign wealth fund itself, establishing the load-bearing Mongolian state-tradition anchor. - 1990 Democratic Revolution: the peaceful democratic revolution at Sukhbaatar Square in Ulaanbaatar, December 1989 through March 1990, led by the Mongolian Democratic Union. Sanjaasürengiin Zorig led the first public demonstration on 10 December 1989 (concurrent with International Human Rights Day), followed by a hunger strike on 14 December 1989 with about 100 participants. Transition to a multi-party system without violence. The 1992 Constitution is the legislative consequence of this revolution. - 1921 Mongolian Revolution: independence from Bogd Khan-era theocratic and Chinese-warlord control under Damdin Sukhbaatar (whose name is carried by the central Ulaanbaatar square where both the 1921 and 1990 revolutions converged). - Sukhbaatar Square: the central square of Ulaanbaatar named for Damdin Sukhbaatar. The architectural and civic centre of modern Mongolian political life. Both revolutions converged on this square. - Naadam (Наадам): the Mongolian national festival held annually 11-13 July, commemorating the 1921 revolution and the deeper Mongolian state-tradition continuity. The three "manly games" (wrestling, horse-racing, archery) anchor the festival. The natural civic-distribution anchor for the bills. - Tsagaan Sar (Цагаан Сар): the Mongolian Lunar New Year, family- centered festival of multi-generational greeting, dairy-food preparation, and reaffirmation of the family and clan bonds. The deepest pastoral-conservative cultural anchor in the Mongolian calendar. - Naadam target distribution date: 11 July (the festival's opening day, the national civic-festival anchor). - Religious freedom: Constitutional Article 9 preserves religious freedom; Mongolia is predominantly Tibetan Buddhist (Yellow-Hat Gelug school under the Gandantegchinlen Monastery in Ulaanbaatar as the principal monastic seat) with strong shamanic continuity in rural and aimag-level practice. UNIVERSAL FOUNDATIONAL CITATIONS APPLICABLE TO THIS BILL AND TO ALL ADAPTATIONS: A. The replication-threshold formulation in Casey Handmer's "Three robot futures" (2024) names the engineering threshold when humanoid and mobile-manipulation robotic platforms become capable of producing and assembling additional copies of themselves from raw and intermediate materials. Once that threshold is crossed, productive-capacity output ceases to be limited by human-labour supply. The Atlas / Optimus / Apollo / Digit / G1 ecosystem at the Q4 2025 through Q2 2026 inflection places the threshold within a one-to-three-year operational horizon. The Authority architecture must be in place before the threshold is crossed so that the resulting productive capacity is operated as a public-good chassis rather than absorbed entirely into private rentier structures. B. The abundance arithmetic baseline: USD 32 billion is the sufficient appropriation to end domestic hunger in the United States (multiple sources including the United States Department of Agriculture). USD 496 billion is the annual United States food-industry markup over production cost. 293,000 United States factories operate at approximately 77 percent capacity utilisation, leaving substantial industrial-capacity headroom without new facility construction. Albrecht Penck's 1925 carrying-capacity estimate established the planetary-scale nutritional-headroom baseline. The United States military commissary system has operated since 1867 on an at-cost pricing model with 158 years of continuous operational evidence (DeCA, 10 U.S.C. §2484). Applied to the Mongolian population scale of approximately 3.6 million people across 1.566 million km², the commissary-at-cost model is operationally tractable but logistically demanding because of population sparsity (~2.3 persons per km²) and aimag-level distance from Ulaanbaatar. C. Hierarchy itself harms human bodies. The Whitehall studies (Michael Marmot, beginning 1967, civil-service cohort), the Serengeti baboon studies (Robert Sapolsky, decades of stress- physiology observation), the cynomolgus-macaque studies (Carol Shively, social-stratification cardiovascular research), and the telomere research (Elizabeth Blackburn, Nobel 2009): four research programmes, six decades, three species, converge on the finding that the gap is the gradient: it is the position within the hierarchy, not absolute material deprivation, that produces measurable physiological harm. Applied to Mongolia, the urban-rural and inter-aimag stratification with wealth concentrated in Ulaanbaatar against herding-rural and informal-settlement (ger-district) populations represents a classical Marmot-pathway gradient at population scale. D. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) 2023 cycle documented sustained competency erosion across the participating high-income nations relative to the 2012 baseline. Mongolia is not a PIAAC participant; equivalent evidence comes from the National Statistics Office of Mongolia education surveys, the Ministry of Education and Science adult-literacy and adult-competency surveys, and the UNESCO Mongolia country reports on adult literacy and continuing education. E. The annona civica (the public-grain distribution chartered by Augustus and elaborated by his successors), the alimenta of Nerva and Trajan (the imperially funded child-support and agricultural-credit system, documented in the Tabula Alimentaria of Veleia and the Ligures Baebiani inscription), and other recurring Mediterranean-Roman and broader Eurasian public-provision instruments establish that direct provision of basic-needs goods by public authority is a recurring architecture across centuries when civilisations face the combination of agricultural-capacity headroom and political- stability requirements. Mongolia's own Yassa codified-law tradition under Chinggis Khaan and the Pax Mongolica intercontinental trade and security order provide a parallel indigenous-Mongolian precedent for the public-good-chassis logic. F. Freight-automation operational evidence: Aurora Innovation transitioned its Texas commercial route into commercial- service operation in 2024-2025 with sustained driver-out freight operation. Equivalent freight-automation evidence in the Eurasian context comes from Russian Federation and People's Republic of China autonomous-trucking deployments along the Trans-Siberian and Belt-and-Road logistics corridors. These confirm that the long-haul-trucking layer of productive-capacity logistics is operationally automatable on current technology, lowering the marginal cost of the at-cost distribution architecture established by this Act. G. The architecture established by this Act preserves the free market in goods and services not produced by the public-good chassis. Mongolian private enterprise, foreign direct investment in the mining sector, the contemporary Ulaanbaatar service economy, the herder-livestock private-property regime, the tourism sector, and the international-trade balance with the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China continue unaffected. The Act does not nationalise private property. The Chinggis Khaan SWF and Erdenes Mongol LLC remain the state-asset chassis they already are under existing law. No state ownership of any privately held means of production is contemplated. The Act establishes a public-good production-and- distribution chassis for basic-needs goods alongside an undisturbed private market for everything else. As the bill's architect has stated in the broader work (Cooper, Historical Apoplexy 2025-2026), this is not the end of capitalism. It is capitalism's adjustment to the post-replication-threshold industrial reality, in which many basic-needs commodities exit the free market through a public-good chassis while discretionary, luxury, craft, and innovation markets continue and intensify. ================================================================================ LONG TITLE ================================================================================ A BILL FOR AN ACT to establish the Mongolia Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Programme; to provide for the production and at-cost distribution of basic-needs food, household, clothing, and educational-supply goods to every ordinarily-resident Mongolian citizen identified by the National Civil ID through the E-Mongolia platform; to charter delivery operations in each of the 21 aimags and Ulaanbaatar capital city; to coordinate with the Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Development Bank of Mongolia, the Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia, the Erdenes Mongol LLC mining group, the Pasture User Group federation, and the Mongolian Red Cross Society; to anchor the Programme in the natural-resource common-inheritance principle established by Article 6 of the Constitution of Mongolia; and for connected purposes. ================================================================================ LEGISLATIVE ROUTING NOTE ================================================================================ This bill is drafted for introduction in the State Great Khural of Mongolia (Улсын Их Хурал) as a Government bill following standard Government-introduction procedure under the Law on the State Great Khural and the Constitution of Mongolia. Cabinet sponsorship is required for fiscal-impact bills. Pre-introduction review by the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs and the Ministry of Finance is contemplated. Committee referral to the Standing Committee on Budget and the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs is anticipated, with joint sittings as required for the cross-portfolio provisions. The Act is enacted consistent with the Constitution of Mongolia, 1992 (as amended 2019 and 2023), particularly Article 1 (sovereign, independent, democratic republic), Article 5 (multi-sector economy with private property rights and state regulation in the public interest), Article 6 (natural resources as the property of the state and the people), Article 9 (religious freedom), Article 16 (fundamental rights including the right to life and the right to acquire property), and Article 19 (state duty to ensure protection of fundamental rights). ================================================================================ DIVISION I - FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS ================================================================================ ARTICLE 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the "Mongolia Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act" (Монгол Улсын Хүнс, Нөөц, Бараа Хангамжийн Тухай Хууль). ARTICLE 2. FINDINGS. The State Great Khural finds: (1) Mongolia carries a documented food-security gap, with a persistent population of citizens and ordinarily-resident persons in rural aimags and in the Ulaanbaatar ger-districts who experience nutritional shortfall, periodic hunger, and inadequate access to basic household goods notwithstanding the operation of the existing Social Welfare Law social-assistance programmes administered by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. (2) Mongolia's mineral wealth, principally the copper-and-gold Oyu Tolgoi deposit and the South Gobi coking-coal Tavan Tolgoi deposit operated through Erdenes Mongol LLC subsidiaries, constitutes a national patrimony declared by Article 6 of the Constitution to be the property of the state and the people. The Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund, established under the Sovereign Wealth Fund Law in force 9 May 2024, already distributes a per-citizen Savings Fund share through the E-Mongolia platform; this Act extends that direct-distribution principle to the basic-needs goods that the per-citizen cash share alone cannot reliably purchase at the soum and bagh level given Mongolia's population sparsity and the resulting distribution-network gaps in private retail. (3) The United States military commissary system has operated since 1867 on an at-cost pricing model under what is now codified at 10 U.S.C. §2484, with 158 years of continuous operational evidence that at-cost distribution of basic-needs goods is operationally sustainable when carried by an established public chassis. The principle is operationally proven, not theoretical. (4) The pastoral cooperative tradition is one of the longest- surviving continuous cooperative-economic structures on Earth. The contemporary Pasture User Group system, the Soviet-era negdel precedent, the Mongolian National Federation of Pasture User Groups, the Mongolian Society for Range Management, and the 2025 herder-law reform establishing multi-tiered associations at soum, aimag, and national levels provide a Mongolian indigenous-cooperative chassis through which the Programme can extend distribution into bagh-level rural areas that lie beyond conventional retail-network coverage. (5) The E-Mongolia platform (e-mongolia.mn) aggregates more than 1,000 government services in a single citizen-facing portal with approximately 2 million active users out of the ~3.6 million Mongolian population. The Chinggis Khaan SWF Savings Fund already operates per-capita distribution through this platform. The platform provides the Programme with a distribution chassis that does not require construction of new administrative infrastructure. (6) The Mongolian Red Cross Society, the Buddhist monastic charitable network anchored at the Gandantegchinlen Monastery in Ulaanbaatar, FAO Mongolia, the World Food Programme Mongolia country office, the United Nations Development Programme Mongolia, the Asian Development Bank Mongolia Resident Mission, and the multilateral development partners coordinating with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry provide existing delivery-partner relationships that the Programme inherits and extends rather than replaces. (7) Mongolia's herder-pastoralist tradition and the multi- generational family economy that anchors it have sustained the Mongolian nation across three millennia of continuous occupation of the steppe. The Programme respects this tradition entirely and is structured to support rather than displace the herder family economy, the multi-generational ger-household structure, and the Tsagaan Sar family-reaffirmation tradition. (8) The Programme imposes no new Mongolian personal income tax, no new corporate income tax, no new value-added tax, no new customs duty, no new excise duty, and no new state tax of any kind. Funding is drawn from existing Chinggis Khaan SWF Development Fund appropriations, existing Erdenes Mongol LLC state-mining revenue under existing law, existing Development Bank of Mongolia lending authority, existing Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia commercial-finance capacity, and existing Government appropriation authority through the State Great Khural annual budget process. ARTICLE 3. DECLARATIONS. The State Great Khural declares: (1) Every Mongolian citizen ordinarily resident in Mongolia is entitled to access to basic-needs food, household, clothing, and educational-supply goods at the at-cost price established under this Act, identified by the National Civil ID administered by the General Authority for State Registration and authenticated through the E-Mongolia platform. (2) The Programme is administered as a public-good production-and- distribution chassis. It does not nationalise privately held Mongolian enterprise, displace the Mongolian private retail sector for non-Programme goods, restrict the Mongolian free market for discretionary, luxury, craft, or innovation goods, or interfere with the herder-livestock private-property regime, the Mongolian tourism sector, the international-trade balance with the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, or the foreign-direct-investment regime in the mining sector. (3) The Programme operates in addition to and without replacement of existing Mongolian social-assistance programmes administered under the Social Welfare Law by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, existing Universal Health Insurance benefits administered by the Health Insurance General Office, existing education-sector benefits administered by the Ministry of Education and Science, and existing pension benefits administered by the Social Insurance General Office. (4) The Programme inherits and respects the herder-pastoralist tradition. The Programme partners with Pasture User Groups, the Mongolian National Federation of Pasture User Groups, the Mongolian Society for Range Management, the Aimag Pasture User Committees, soum-level Pasture User Committees, the Mongolian Red Cross Society, the Buddhist monastic charitable network anchored at the Gandantegchinlen Monastery, and other existing Mongolian cooperative, charitable, and faith-based delivery partners. The Programme does not absorb, replace, or compete with these partners; it coordinates with them and provides them with goods to distribute at the bagh and soum level under Programme cost terms. (5) The Programme target distribution date is 11 July (Naadam, the national festival commemorating the 1921 revolution and the deeper Mongolian state-tradition continuity). Naadam is the natural civic-distribution anchor. ================================================================================ DIVISION II - THE MONGOLIA PROGRAMME ================================================================================ ARTICLE 4. ESTABLISHMENT. (1) There is hereby established within the Government of Mongolia a programme to be known as the "Mongolia Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Programme" (the "Programme"). (2) The Programme is administered by the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry of Mongolia in concurrence with the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Labour and Social Protection, the Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry, and the Minister of Health. (3) The Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry shall designate a Programme Director within the Ministry to discharge operational responsibility for the Programme. ARTICLE 5. MONGOLIA FOOD ASSURANCE CENTRES. (1) The Programme shall operate Mongolia Food Assurance Centres ("MFACs") in each of the 21 aimags and the nine districts of Ulaanbaatar capital city. (2) The Programme shall prioritise initial MFAC deployment in: (a) the nine districts of Ulaanbaatar (Bagakhangai, Baganuur, Bayangol, Bayanzürkh, Chingeltei, Khan-Uul, Nalaikh, Songinokhairkhan, Sükhbaatar) with particular priority within the ger-districts surrounding the central core, where household food-security gaps are most documented in National Statistics Office surveys; (b) the South Gobi mining belt (Ömnögovi aimag), where the Oyu Tolgoi and Tavan Tolgoi operations have generated substantial in-migration without commensurate retail- network development; (c) the western aimags (Bayan-Ölgii, Khovd, Uvs, Govi-Altai, Zavkhan), where the Central Energy System grid coverage is incomplete and where the Kazakh-minority cultural community is concentrated; (d) the northern aimags (Khövsgöl, Selenge, Bulgan, Darkhan- Uul), where the forestry and agricultural economy provides Programme procurement opportunity and where winter heating-and-electricity coupling places household budgets under recurring stress; (e) the central aimags (Töv, Khentii, Övörkhangai, Arkhangai, Bayankhongor, Dundgovi, Govisümber, Sükhbaatar, Dornod, Dornogovi), where the herder-pastoralist economy is the dominant household-economic structure and where the Pasture User Group delivery partnership provides operational distribution at bagh level. (3) Each MFAC shall: (a) Hold inventory in basic-needs categories itemised in Article 6 below; (b) Sell goods at the at-cost price established under Article 7 below; (c) Verify shopper identity through the National Civil ID and the E-Mongolia platform; (d) Coordinate with the relevant Pasture User Group, soum administration, and bagh authority for last-mile bagh- level distribution; (e) Coordinate with the Mongolian Red Cross Society and the Buddhist monastic charitable network for emergency- response distribution. ARTICLE 6. GOODS CATALOGUE. (1) The Programme shall hold inventory in the following basic-needs categories drawn from the Mongolian household consumption pattern documented by the National Statistics Office: (a) Staples: wheat flour, rice, barley, oats, buckwheat, sugar, salt, vegetable oil, butter (цөцгийн тос), and Mongolian sea-buckthorn (chatsargana) preserves; (b) Protein: beef, lamb, mutton, goat, horse meat, chicken, camel meat (in the Gobi aimags), fish (in Khövsgöl Nuur and lake-adjacent aimags), eggs, and dairy (airag, aaruul, byaslag, suutei tsai), drawn primarily from Mongolian herder-producer supply chains coordinated with Pasture User Groups under cooperative-producer agreements; (c) Vegetables and fruits: potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, beets, turnips, sea buckthorn berry, and seasonal greens from Mongolian agricultural producers in the Selenge and Töv aimag river-valley belts and the Tuul Gol and Orkhon Gol valleys, with imported produce as required for winter- season nutritional balance; (d) Basic clothing, including school uniforms aligned with Ministry of Education and Science curricular requirements, traditional deel (Mongolian outer garment) in regionally- appropriate weights, winter outerwear of weight sufficient for the Mongolian continental climate, work boots and herder boots, gloves, hats, and undergarments; (e) Hand tools and household goods, including kitchenware, cookware, fuel-storage containers, water-storage containers, household textiles, ger-maintenance supplies for ger-household residents, and weatherproofing supplies for apartment-dwelling residents; (f) Educational supplies (notebooks, pencils, pens, calculators, rulers, reading materials, geometry sets) calibrated to the Ministry of Education and Science curricular requirements through the developmental window extended in the broader Compendium to age twenty-five; (g) Baby and child supplies (formula, diapers, baby-bath supplies, child-clothing layers, basic toys and books); (h) Winter-survival supplies recognising the Mongolian continental climate and the periodic dzud (severe winter livestock-loss event) context: high-calorie shelf-stable food, water and water-purification supplies, candles, battery-operated lamps and torches with batteries, paraffin and LPG cookers, prepaid mobile-data vouchers, and basic first-aid supplies, distributed in concert with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA, Онцгой байдлын ерөнхий газар) and the Mongolian Red Cross Society. (2) The Goods Catalogue is reviewed and updated annually by the Programme Director in consultation with the National Statistics Office household-consumption surveys, the Mongolian Red Cross Society, the Mongolian National Federation of Pasture User Groups, the relevant aimag Governors, and the nine Ulaanbaatar district Governors. (3) Procurement preferences: (a) Mongolian agricultural and herder-producer supply preferred over imports where Mongolian supply is commercially available at quality and timeliness; (b) Pasture User Group cooperative-producer agreements preferred over wholesale-import contracts for herder- produced protein and dairy; (c) Mongolian processing and manufacturing preferred over finished-good imports where Mongolian processing capacity is available; (d) Russian Federation, People's Republic of China, Republic of Korea, and other international suppliers as required for goods not commercially available in Mongolian supply. ARTICLE 7. AT-COST PRICING. (1) Goods are sold at the Programme at-cost price calculated as the sum of: (a) Verified procurement cost; (b) Verified inbound transportation, storage, and handling cost to the MFAC point of sale; (c) An administrative-recovery markup of not more than four percent (4%), recovering the operational cost of the MFAC network and the Programme Director's office; (d) No profit margin. No private intermediary markup. No wholesale-tier markup beyond verified actual cost. (2) The at-cost price calculation is published annually for each goods-category on the Programme page of the E-Mongolia platform and on the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry website. The State Audit Office of Mongolia conducts an annual verification audit of the at-cost calculation and publishes findings in its annual report to the State Great Khural. (3) The 158-year DeCA commissary-at-cost operational evidence is the operational precedent. The four percent administrative- recovery markup is a Mongolian adaptation reflecting the population-sparsity and aimag-distance logistical context, and is subject to downward revision by the Cabinet once the MFAC network reaches steady-state operation. ARTICLE 8. ELIGIBILITY AND ACCESS. (1) Every Mongolian citizen ordinarily resident in Mongolia is eligible to purchase from the MFAC network at the at-cost price, identified by the National Civil ID and authenticated through the E-Mongolia platform. (2) Refugees and persons granted residence status under the Mongolian law on the legal status of foreign citizens are eligible on the same basis as Mongolian citizens for the duration of their lawful residence. (3) Visiting foreign citizens (tourists, short-term business travellers, exchange students, diplomatic personnel) are not eligible to purchase from the MFAC network at the at-cost price; they remain served by the existing Mongolian private retail sector. (4) No additional eligibility test. No income test. No means test. No work-status test. No conditionality whatsoever beyond Mongolian citizenship or lawful-residence verification through the National Civil ID. ================================================================================ DIVISION III - FUNDING ARCHITECTURE ================================================================================ ARTICLE 9. INITIAL APPROPRIATION. (1) MNT 60 billion is appropriated from the State Budget of Mongolia for the fiscal year 2027 to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry for Programme establishment, initial MFAC construction or lease, initial inventory procurement, Programme Director's office establishment, and Programme launch costs. (2) MNT 25 billion is appropriated from the State Budget of Mongolia for the fiscal year 2027 to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry for the Pasture User Group delivery-partner agreement framework, the Mongolian Red Cross Society partnership framework, and the Buddhist monastic charitable-network coordination framework. (3) These appropriations are made from existing State Budget revenue. No new tax is established by this Act. ARTICLE 10. STATE-ENTERPRISE AND BANKING COORDINATION. (1) The Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund, acting through its Development Fund and consistent with its governance under the Sovereign Wealth Fund Law of 9 May 2024, may coordinate up to MNT 200 billion of Development Fund allocation toward Programme infrastructure (MFAC construction, cold-chain capacity, aimag-level storage facilities), upon Board approval and subject to Khural appropriations process oversight. (2) Erdenes Mongol LLC, acting through its existing intergovernmental dividend-and-revenue distribution framework, may coordinate state-mining revenue allocation toward Programme funding consistent with the existing Sovereign Wealth Fund Law allocation rules. (3) The Development Bank of Mongolia (DBM) may extend up to MNT 150 billion in policy-lending to the Programme for capital- intensive infrastructure including cold-chain, aimag-level storage, and procurement-finance facilities, consistent with DBM's statutory mandate. (4) The Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia (TDB), in its commercial-finance capacity, may provide trade-finance, working-capital, and inbound-procurement-finance facilities to the Programme on commercial terms consistent with its September 2024 finance agreement with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and with its broader commercial-banking operations. (5) The Bank of Mongolia (Монголбанк) maintains its independent monetary-policy mandate. Nothing in this Act directs, modifies, or constrains the central-bank function. Programme funding flows through the State Budget appropriations process and the state-enterprise coordination framework, not through monetary operations. ARTICLE 11. NO NEW TAX. (1) Nothing in this Act establishes any new Mongolian personal income tax, corporate income tax, value-added tax, customs duty, excise duty, mining royalty, or other state tax. No existing tax is increased by this Act. (2) The Programme is funded through the State Budget appropriations process, the Chinggis Khaan SWF Development Fund coordination contemplated in Article 10, the Erdenes Mongol LLC dividend- and-revenue distribution framework, the Development Bank of Mongolia policy-lending authority, the Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia commercial-finance authority, the at-cost administrative-recovery markup established in Article 7, and multilateral and bilateral development-partner coordination as contemplated in Article 12. ARTICLE 12. MULTILATERAL AND BILATERAL DEVELOPMENT-PARTNER COORDINATION. (1) The Programme coordinates with existing multilateral and bilateral development partners active in Mongolia, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB Mongolia Resident Mission), the World Bank (Mongolia country office), the United Nations Development Programme Mongolia, the Food and Agriculture Organization Mongolia, the World Food Programme Mongolia, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Mongolia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the bilateral cooperation programmes of the Government of Japan (JICA), the Government of Germany (GIZ + KfW), the Government of the Republic of Korea (KOICA), the Government of the United States (USAID + DFC), the Government of the United Kingdom, the Government of the Russian Federation, and the Government of the People's Republic of China. (2) Coordination shall preserve the existing partnership relationships and the existing project pipelines of the multilateral and bilateral partners. The Programme does not displace, absorb, or replace these existing relationships; it complements and integrates with them. ================================================================================ DIVISION IV - GOVERNANCE AND OVERSIGHT ================================================================================ ARTICLE 13. PROGRAMME REPORTING. (1) The Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, through the Programme Director, reports quarterly to the Cabinet on Programme operations, inventory turnover, citizen-shopper enrolment through E-Mongolia, at-cost pricing audit findings, delivery-partner performance, and aimag-level distribution coverage. (2) The Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry presents an annual Programme report to the State Great Khural, with referral to the Standing Committee on Budget and the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs. (3) The State Audit Office of Mongolia conducts annual verification audits of: (a) Programme expenditure, (b) the at-cost price calculation methodology and outturn, (c) delivery-partner contract performance, (d) MFAC inventory integrity, and (e) the E-Mongolia identity-verification integrity. Audit findings are published in the State Audit Office annual report. ARTICLE 14. CITIZEN OVERSIGHT. (1) Each aimag Governor and each Ulaanbaatar district Governor establishes a Citizen Oversight Council for the MFAC network in their jurisdiction. Each Council includes representatives from local Pasture User Groups (in pastoral aimags), local Mongolian Red Cross Society chapters, local Buddhist monastic representatives, local Kazakh-minority cultural representatives (in Bayan-Ölgii aimag), local consumer cooperatives, local chambers of commerce, and ordinary citizen-shopper representatives. (2) Citizen Oversight Council findings are reported to the Programme Director and to the relevant aimag or Ulaanbaatar district Governor. Material findings are referred to the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry. ================================================================================ DIVISION V - GENERAL PROVISIONS ================================================================================ ARTICLE 15. EFFECTIVE DATE. (1) Articles 1 (Short Title), 3 (Declarations), and 16 (Effective Date provisions) take effect on the date this Act receives presidential assent and is published in the State Bulletin of Mongolia (Төрийн мэдээлэл). (2) Remaining provisions take effect on 1 April 2027. (3) First MFAC openings are targeted for 11 July 2027 (Naadam) in each of the 21 aimag centres and the nine Ulaanbaatar districts. ARTICLE 16. CONSTITUTIONAL CONSISTENCY. This Act is enacted consistent with the Constitution of Mongolia, 1992 (as amended 2019 and 2023), particularly Article 1 (sovereign, independent, democratic republic), Article 5 (multi-sector economy with private property rights and state regulation in the public interest), Article 6 (natural resources as the property of the state and the people), Article 9 (religious freedom), Article 16 (fundamental rights including the right to life and the right to acquire property), and Article 19 (state duty to ensure protection of fundamental rights); and with the Sovereign Wealth Fund Law (in force 9 May 2024), the Law on the State Great Khural, the Law on the Development Bank of Mongolia, the Law on the Central Bank of Mongolia, the Budget Law of Mongolia, the Public Procurement Law of Mongolia, the Social Welfare Law of Mongolia, the Pasture Law of Mongolia, and the 2025 herder-law reform. ARTICLE 17. INTERPRETATION. In this Act: "the Programme" means the Mongolia Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Programme established under Article 4; "MFAC" means a Mongolia Food Assurance Centre established under Article 5; "the National Civil ID" or "IBD" means the Иргэний бүртгэлийн дугаар issued by the General Authority for State Registration (Улсын бүртгэлийн ерөнхий газар); "E-Mongolia" means the Government of Mongolia unified digital- services portal at e-mongolia.mn; "the Chinggis Khaan SWF" or "the Sovereign Wealth Fund" means the Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund established under the Sovereign Wealth Fund Law of 9 May 2024 (swf.gov.mn); "Erdenes Mongol" or "Erdenes Mongol LLC" means the state-owned holding company managing the Mongolian strategic mineral assets (erdenesmongol.mn); "DBM" means the Development Bank of Mongolia (dbm.mn); "TDB" or "TDBM" means the Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia (tdbm.mn); "Bank of Mongolia" or "Монголбанк" means the central bank of Mongolia; "Naadam" means the Mongolian national festival held annually 11-13 July; "Tsagaan Sar" means the Mongolian Lunar New Year family reaffirmation festival; "Pasture User Group" or "PUG" means a herder cooperative operating under the Pasture Law of Mongolia and the 2025 herder- law reform; "aimag" means a Mongolian province (21 in total) at the first- level subnational administrative tier; "Ulaanbaatar capital city" means the capital-city first-level administrative unit comprising nine districts; "soum" means a district at the second-level subnational administrative tier (approximately 330 in total across the aimags); "bagh" means a sub-district at the third-level subnational administrative tier (approximately 1,664 in total across the soums); "ger" means the traditional Mongolian round felt-and-wood dwelling; "ger-district" means the peri-urban zones surrounding the Ulaanbaatar central core in which ger-dwellings predominate; "the Marmot quartet" means the four research programmes identified in Universal Foundational Citation C above (Marmot Whitehall, Sapolsky Serengeti baboons, Shively cynomolgus macaques, Blackburn telomere research); "the replication threshold" means the Casey Handmer formulation identified in Universal Foundational Citation A above; "ordinarily resident" has the meaning given by Mongolian law on civil registration and immigration as administered by the General Authority for State Registration. ================================================================================ - END - ================================================================================