Our advantage, as you have already noticed, is that we are a consolidated and vibrant democracy. In the past we were in disadvantage compared with any free market economy, as we didn’t have the economic and social freedom for our personal and professional development.  Today Mongolia is a democracy with guarantees of an open society, the rule of law and direct representation of the citizens by a responsible government with the impetrative of serving its people and bringing Mongolia to the international arena, for the benefits both of public and private institutions. I do believe that democracy in this continent is a very good advantage. We live in an open society now where any foreigner can find the needed certitude to be engaged. 
 

As any other country we have our shortcomings but generally we approach a new stage year-by-year, learning from the mistakes of the past while building the foundations of a promising future in accordance with the international commitments and global economy overture.

Ten years ago Mongolia was small and our goal was not to attract anyone's attention. But in ten years our economy grew tenfold and became an attractive middle-income country. Now our problem is to find a common language and common interests so we have the opportunity to create the best future for the Mongolian people. 

Naturally we need expertise and consensuses to decide on any far reaching decisions. This is a continuous process of learning, in a society of three million members it is a welcome challenge, but as our economy needs foreign investors we need to drive excellence in every decision that we take, portrait credibility and learn from the view of both foreign and national private companies that are contributing to the welfare of Mongolia and to the sustainable economic growth of our nation.

From the moment we got into power we made changes in the government and we decided to create two new ministries. The first one was the Ministry of Economic Development to direct rightly the economic path of development that will take advantage of the untapped potential of the country. There wasn’t any proper pacification before. Without the right short, medium and long-term policies, without a clear view Mongolia will walk blind, that’s why we need economic development in a way that everyone can see the guidance. Now, this is the direction where Mongolia is headed, so people can decide on investments and cooperation with Mongolia. 

The second Ministry we created was for boosting the green development of Mongolia. We see the importance of green development on the same line as the ministry of finance and the ministry of foreign affairs. This means that any choices made in Mongolia should be made with green eyes. We should really preserve the beauty of Mongolia, its nature, the balance of the environment, the nomadic culture and sustainable development and I believe that has been a very important decision. Apart from that, there are a few more decisions and government organizations that are carrying out the development of tourism, sports, the cashmere and other industries while supporting SMEs so everyone can realize their ideas.
 

Ten years ago and the period before that Mongolia was perceived as a country with wild horses and nomadic people. There was no industry; there was no economic future. Our achievements have been noticed and people are interested now. Mongolia is now seen as an economic power for the future, as a very important connection point in North East Asia economic prosperity. Now everybody recognizes this. Everyone is talking about real economic contact and that is very good news for us. In the past, whenever we went to Japan we used to talk about sumo wrestling 60% of the time. Nowadays sumo doesn’t even get mentioned anymore and Mongolians have been dominating sumo for more than 15 years now.

There are two things that investors always look before setting any kind of business in a country: infrastructures development and transparency. The United States has been assisting Mongolia through Millennium Challenges Corporation to improve the infrastructure in the critical north-south economic corridor. What is your strategy to increase the foreign trade and relations with United States?

 

That is a good point. Up until now the USA has been the greatest supporter of Mongolia and our new system. With the many problems we have, and you mentioned all of them. This is why the Mongolian people will always be grateful. But now it is time to start working as partners. We can really do a lot of lucrative work and projects here. Now the US has to look at Mongolia as a potential country for job creation. We can invest and create investment. We have the ability to influence the economic environment of the entire region of Asia. We can influence the world prices on energy and commodities, which is a life standard for many people around the world. So I think we can have a very good cooperation and of course the USA is the champion in many areas such as technology, agriculture, infrastructure, modern IT, so we could cooperate very well in the future.
 

The agreement with the US is still in its initial stage. Naturally it will bring many changes and allows US companies to be opened in Mongolia. It is however not only an issue between Mongolia and the USA. Transporting is about English. English is a business language. This means that it benefits the US but not only the US, also international companies and businesses. Of course the US is a leader and will naturally be at the forefront of starting businesses and doing other activities here. We are really welcoming.
 

Mr. Bold: We are very supportive of this vision. This doesn’t mean that the USA is diminishing all other ideas. It is important because Asia has finally matured itself enough to be a very important part of the global trade. We understand the feedback we as Mongolians. Now Mongolia has become what it is today. And now we can and are playing a certain role and we will continue to support and encourage. We will prove ourselves to be real good partners. 

Mongolia

Now in our case, we know that diplomatic relations is important. Diplomatic ties are key to increasing the countries role and position internationally and that has always been an important guideline for us. But the thing which is more important than that is the economic impact with foreign relations. We should support companies, our citizens, our partners, those who are interested in Mongolia and those who want to visit Mongolia. Therefore every day, we take new steps to support them, to inform them and to enable easier visa processes. In the past we only had no visa agreements with the US and now we have those agreements with Canada and Germany which continued with Japan and we encouraged more movement more interactions and all these actions should really improve the lives of businesses and the economic situations here as well as on the opposite side. I think these activities are also welcomed in our partner countries.

Sure, the two neighbors we have are god given gifts. One is the biggest country in the world and the other is the most populated one. At the same time any other friend is like a neighbor. In Mongolian terms being like a neighbor is like having a close friend or partner. You might say aren’t two neighbors enough? But we can always have more neighbors. Anyone we can trust and who has good intentions and a clean heart and wants to cooperate with us will always be welcomed by us as friends. They are not our neighbors because of their priority to develop because there will be a common policy economy cooperation. So this does not mean that because we already have 2 neighbors we will tell the other people they can’t be. That way everybody loses.

We recently heard that you want to host the World Economic Forum of Asia in 2016. Do you think that Mongolia is ready to host these kind of forums in Ulaanbaatar?

 

Sure I don’t think that it is a problem, because nowadays there are many new projects for modernization of hotels and international hotels. Our government just decided to establish a new international center near the new airport as well and rural cities itself are changing rapidly and I think that in the next two years Mongolia will be dramatically different. So I think it is also good for the WEF to see how a landlocked country and its population can change, can emerge as a new economic power. I think it is also good. We are ensuring a new concept of world economic development in the future. It is good stage. 

Last year we had a conference call with all the ambassadors, the prime minister, everybody was around. We got a presentation of all these sections of cashmere and light industry. And every embassy got directives to promote, to help those producers and those businesses. I think that is going on there now. Now they are more successful. They know that there is some Mongolian embassy to help them, to support them more and those embassies are also welcoming and also for them it’s a very good experience to support Mongolian entrepreneurs and business exporters I think there is a very good collaboration going on now. 

There is not much to say additionally. North American mentality is really close to Mongolians. They have this ability to think big and to live in a big space and compete with nature and be effective and productive. I think for them Mongolia would be a very natural place, so we just want to invite them to be with us and to invest. They would love Mongolia.