The Sustainable Artisanal Mining (SAM) project was initiated and co-implemented by the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in 2005. The fourth phase of the project mainly focuses on formalization of gold supply chain and improvement of economy and living standards in local, regional and national communities benefiting from artisanal mining.

The Assay Inspection Department of Mongolian Agency for Standardization and Metrology has been involved in the project operation since 2013 upgrading technical capacity and building human resource capability. The department contributes to the project by supporting artisanal miners in smelting and assaying gold, selling the gold at official market and joining fair exploration market.

There is a gold smelting furnace with capacity of smelting up to 10kg of gold at the Assay Inspection Department. However, it costs a lot to smelt small amount of gold. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation handed an induction furnace for gold smelting with full appliances. The heating, product of “TopCast” company in Italy, costs 47 million tugriks can smelt up to 3kg of gold. This type of gold smelting furnace helps artisanal miners and entities assay small amount of gold.

S.Yanjinsuren, Advisor to the Deputy Minister, G.Gantumur, Chairman of Mongolian Agency for Standardization and Metrology, Ilaria Dali, First Secretary at Consular Office of the Embassy of Switzerland and Deputy Director of Cooperation at SDC, and B.Altanbagana, National Project Coordinator of SAM project participated at the hand over ceremony of donating the induction furnace.

“I hope that our cooperation will strengthen in terms of formalization of gold supply chain and for providing qualified service of gold assaying for artisanal miners” said Ilaria Dali.