Mongolia aims for more balanced growth
Sukhbaatar Batbold, the Prime Minister of Mongolia, has said the country needs to look beyond the coal and copper mines that are driving its economic boom to find a more balanced model of growth.
Investment in mining projects and speculation on the wealth they will create in the world’s most sparsely populated nation have made Mongolia’s tugrik the best-performing currency since the beginning of 2010.
“It is important to have a good mining industry,” Mr Batbold said in an interview at a forum in Mongolia’s capital Ulan Bator. “But it is a tool of moving many other things forward. What we want to focus on is creating jobs in many other industries.”
Mongolia, which the government estimates has the capacity to produce 30% of the world’s cashmere, this year set up a marketing agency to help farmers and herders market their products abroad.
More than a third of Mongolia’s 1.1 million labour force work in agriculture, primarily tending livestock. Services employ 61%, with industry accounting for 5%, according to the CIA World Handbook.
In contrast, industry provides 30% of gross domestic product and agriculture 21%. As well as raw materials and unprocessed animal products, Mongolia also sells leathergoods and apparel and the government aims to support to textiles, infrastructure, tourism and food production, Mr Batbold said.
“We’d like to focus now on value-added products,” he said.
