Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. In 2019, Mongolia traded with 152 countries from all over the world and total trade turnover reached USD 13.7 billion, of which USD 7.6 billion were exports and USD 6.1 billion were imports. Total foreign trade turnover increased by USD 860.6 (6.7%) million, of which exports increased by USD 608.0 million (8.7%) and imports increased by USD 252.6 million (8.0%) compared to the same period of previous year.

Mongolian foreign trade balance has been in surplus since 2014 and foreign trade surplus reached USD 1.5 billion in 2019, increased by USD 355.4 million (31.3%) from previous year.

In December 2019, exports and imports reached to USD 564.2 million and USD 543.6 million, respectively. Compared to the previous month, exports increased by USD 37.3 million and imports increased by USD 24.4 million. 

In December 2019, foreign trade surplus reached to USD 20.5 million. Compared to the previous month, foreign trade surplus increased by USD 12.9 million.

In total turnover, trades with two neighbor countries China and Russia have highest shares where trade with China was USD 8.9 billion in 2019, which is 64.4% of total goods turnover and 89.1 percent of exports.

In total export goods to China, 44 percent was coal and 26.4 percent was copper concentrate. While 77.5% of total export goods to the United Kingdom, 76.7% of total export goods to Singapore and 98.8% of total export goods to Switzerland were gold.

In 2019, imports by main countries, China share to 33.6%, Russia share to 28.2%, Japan share to 9.6%, USA share to 4.7% and Korea share to 4.4% of total imports.

Petroleum products share to 55.8% of Russia’s imports, Cars share to 60.9% of Japan’s imports, trucks share to 13.8% of China’s imports and there are many different types of products share to other percent.

The 608.0 million increase in exports from the same period of previous year was mainly due to the increases in exports of USD 288.2 million in bituminous coal and USD 273.9 million in raw or semi-manufactured gold.

Before the discovery of the major mining sites, agriculture was main economic sector of Mongolia. In 2019 by preliminary estimate, Mongolia exported USD 132.2 million meat and meat products, which is USD 17.2 million or 27.4% lower compared to previous year.

Export of washed cashmere increased by USD 46.3 million, while export of combed raw cashmere decreased by USD 9.6 million. Export of both washed cashmere and combed raw cashmere makes up to 4.3 percent of total export.

The USD 252.6 million increase in imports from the same period of previous year was mainly due to USD 46.5 million increase in mineral products imports, especially, USD 92.6 million increase in diesel imports and USD 267.0 million increase in imports of transport vehicles and its spare parts. In 2019, Mongolia imported 94065 vehicles, in which 69472 were cars. Imported cars increased by 5433 or 8.5% from previous year.

Exports of mineral products, textiles and textile articles, natural or cultured stones, precious metals jewelry made up 94.9 percent of total export. On the other hand, 68.9 percent of imports was mineral products, machinery, equipment, electric appliances, transport vehicle and its spare parts and food products.

Source: National Statistics Office of Mongolia