Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. In the first 5 months of 2021, Mongolia traded with 131 countries from all over the world, and the total trade turnover reached USD 5.9 billion, of which USD 3.3 billion were exports and USD 2.6 billion were imports. The total foreign trade turnover increased by USD 1.9 billion (48.2%), where exports increased by USD 1.3 billion (65.7%) and imports increased by USD 609.2 million (30.6%) compared to the same period of previous year. In May 2021, exports reached USD 827.3 million, increased by USD 331.0 million (66.7%) and imports reached USD 640.4 million, increased by USD 202.8 million (46.4%) compared to the previous month.

The foreign trade balance was in surplus of USD 722.4 million in the first 5 months of 2021, increased by USD 708.5 million from previous year and compared with surplus of USD 13.9 million in the first 5 months of 2020.

Trade with China reached USD 4.0 billion in the first 5 months of 2021, which is 68.2% of the total trade turnover.

Bituminous coal and copper concentrates accounted for 29.0% and 33.4% of total exports to China, respectively, gold accounted for 99.0% and 76.9% of total export to Switzerland and Republic of Korea.

In the first 5 months of 2021, USD 1.3 billion increase in exports from the previous year was resulted from USD 211.8 million increase in Iron ores and concentrates, USD 386.7 million increase in copper concentrates exports and USD 428.7 million increase in coal exports.

In May 2021, USD 331.0 million increase in exports was mainly due to coal exports volume reached 1.4 million tonnes and increased by 685.3 thousand tonnes from 710.6 thousand tonnes in April 2021.

In the first 5 months of 2021, 40.2% of the total imports was from China, 25.8% was from Russia, 6.6% was from Japan, 4.0% was from Republic of Korea and 4.0% was from Germany, which are accounting for 80.6% of the total imports.

In the first 5 months of 2021, 49.0% of the total imports from Russia was petroleum products, 68.5% of the total imports from Japan was cars, and 5.1% of the total imports from China was electricity, 15.6% was trucks and 79.3% was imports of other products.

The USD 609.2 million increase in imports from the previous year was mainly due to USD 40.7 million increase in wheat, USD 121.3 million increase in trucks, USD 38.7 million increase in diesel and USD 29.1 million increase in cars.

Exports of mineral products, food products, and vegetable origin products made up 87.7 percent of the total export. On the other hand, 64.6 percent of the total imports was mineral products, machinery, equipment, electric appliances, transport vehicle and its spare parts and food products.

Source: National Statistics Office of Mongolia