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Rio Tinto Ltd has lifted its stake in Canada's Ivanhoe Mines Ltd to 19.7 per cent under an agreement to jointly develop Ivanhoe's $US3 billion ($A3.29 billion) Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia.

Mongolia has shortlisted eight potential partners for its huge Tavan Tolgoi coking coal project, according to Temuulen Ganzorig, deputy director of Erdenes MGL, the Mongolian government company that will hold at least 51 percent of the equity.

Some foreign investors hope the sprawling desert country of Mongolia will become the next big resource story, following a landmark agreement with the government to develop one of the world's biggest copper-and-gold deposits.

Mongolia's media has flourished since the end of communism two decades ago, but the result is a crazy mix of countless TV stations and newspapers, mass piracy, slander, rumours and corruption.