Financial Services

Although landlocked between China and Russia, Mongolia’s priority is to cultivate trade and investment links with its “third neighbours” – a phrase first coined in 1990 by US Secretary of State James Baker to describe Mongolia’s relations with the US. A WTO member since 1997, Mongolia has since lowered barriers to trade. With a growing array of...

As the Mongolian economy weakens, the country’s banking system faces challenges. Assets on balance sheets are looking far less solid and customers are finding it harder to service their loans as growth slows and as the boom of recent years comes apparently to an end. Nevertheless, the core of the Mongolian banking system is quite sound.

Legislative changes in early 2012, like the Strategic Entities Foreign Investment Law (SEFIL), combined with a global trend of capital outflow from developing countries, unnerved investors and led to 17% and 47% year-on-year drops in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2012 and the first three quarters of 2013, respectively. In November 2013, the...

The Bank of Mongolia, the country’s central bank, has a tough job. Not only does it have to contend with international crises and crashes, like everyone else, but it has responsibility for a relatively young and untested banking system. Moreover, and more to the point, it has to deal with extreme money flows caused by fluctuating resource prices...

Over the centuries, Mongolia and Europe have been much closer than you would think from looking at a map. Our destinies were tied together in the 13th and 14th centuries when the Pax Mongolica enabled East and West to meet for the first time in history and to travel freely along the silk route which the Khan dynasty secured as a free trade route...