AKIPRESS.COM - Mongolia will push ahead with plans to list a state mining firm embroiled in a corruption scandal that has sparked protests in the capital Ulaanbaatar, with new ownership likely to help drive out graft, the country's justice minister told Reuters.

The state-owned Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC (ETT) owns a large chunk of a sprawling 6-billion tonne coking coal deposit near the Chinese border that has been at the heart of Mongolia's plans to grow its small and mining-dependent economy for more than a decade.

But development at Tavan Tolgoi has been held back by poor transport links and disputes about how Mongolia's strategic assets should be funded and owned. Fluctuations in global coal prices and cooling investor sentiment have also stymied previous efforts to list ETT's shares overseas.

"The prime minister is putting forward an initiative to change (ETT's) governance and make it public quickly," said Nyambaatar Khishgee, Minister of Justice and Internal Affairs, after thousands gathered in recent days to protest government corruption.

"It is expected that this will end the problems of transparency in the mining sector and public officials' corruption," he added.