Mongolia's Biggest Foreign Investment The Oyu Tolgoi Mine

KHANBOGD-SOUTH GOBI DESERT, MONGOLIA - OCTOBER 11: Chinese construction workers march together as they leave on a lunch break at the Oyu Tolgoi mine October 11, 2012 in the south Gobi desert, Khanbogd region, Mongolia. About 2,500 Chinese workers are contracted to help with construction onsite. The Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolian for Turquoise Hill) copper and gold mine is a combined open pit and underground mining project. The site, discovered in 2001, is located approximately 550 km south of the Mongolian capital, Ulan-Batar in the South Gobi Desert. Turquoise Hill Resources (Formerly Ivanhoe Mines) and Rio Tinto signed a long-term comprehensive investment agreement with the Government of Mongolia in 2009 with the deal awarding Turquoise Hill Resources, whose majority shareholder is Rio Tinto, with a controlling 66 percent interest and The Mongolian Government with a 34 percent interest in the project. Rio Tinto provided a comprehensive financing package and assumed direct management of the project under an agreement with Ivanhoe Mines. Initial production from open pit mining is currently underway and commercial production is planned to start in first half of 2013. An 85million USD investment was earmarked for education and training projects, with Mongolians expected to constitute 90 percent of the work force when production begins in 2013. When Oyu Tolgoi starts fully operating Mongolia will be set to become one of the world's top copper and gold producers with production estimates of 450,000 tons of copper and 330,000 ounces of gold annually. Mongolia is currently the world's fastest growing economy with its GDP increasing by more than 17 percent last year and an estimated $1.3 trillion in untapped mineral resources. Oyu Tolgoi is Mongolia's largest foreign investment project and the country's biggest economic undertaking to date, which is projected to add one-third of future value to the country's GDP by 2020. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)