Mongolia: The Resource Giant Ready to be Woken Up

Mongolia is a landlocked country in Eastern Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the east, west and south. It is roughly the size of Alaska, but with a population of just 2.8 million people it is the most sparsely populated country in the world. Traditionally a communist state, it converted to democracy in the early 1990’s and has since experienced a vast transformation.

The transition to a free market economy opened the country to foreign investors, attracting many major oil and mining companies who were desperate to harvest the geological riches of the untouched land. The foreign investment into mining and quarrying, along with the resources exported out of the country have enabled its economy to boom.

According to the National Statistics Office of Mongolia (NSO), after 2009 when the world was hit by a financial crisis, the Mongolian GDP recovered quickly to 6.4% growth in 2010, and then a year later to 17.3%, nearly double that of its neighbour China, the fastest growing major economy.

Mongolia currently ranks among the top 10 resource-rich nations in the world. Industrial production mainly consists of coal, copper, gold, molybdenum, fluorspar, uranium, tin, tungsten, and iron ore.
The NSO has noted that increased mining and quarrying of crude oil, coal and iron ore is helping the economy to experience such strong growth.

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