Economy

Imports
$6.82 billion (2021). Refined Petroleum ($1.01B), Cars ($420M), Delivery Trucks ($303M), Trailers and semi-trailers, not mechanically propelled vehicles ($204M), and Electricity ($161M), importing mostly from China ($2.5B), Russia ($1.81B), Japan ($484M), South Korea ($366M), and Germany ($199M).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 98.2% have an account with a financial institution
• 7% have a credit card
• 58.8% have a mobile money account
• 39.5% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
Moderately ease of conducting business is medium (rated 67.8 out of 100). Ranked 10th out of 25 East Asia & Pacific countries. Ranked 81st out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank)

Exports
$10.5 billion (2021). Copper Ore ($2.9B), Coal Briquettes ($2.74B), Gold ($2.11B), Iron Ore ($945M), and Animal Hair ($325M), exporting mostly to China ($7.64B), Switzerland ($1.97B), Singapore ($255M), South Korea ($221M), and Russia ($114M).

In 2021, Mongolia was the world’s biggest exporter of Animal Hair ($325M).

Main local online stores
unegui.mn, amazon.com

Economic freedom
‘Moderately free’ (rated 61.7 out of 100). Ranked 15th out of 27 East Asia & Pacific countries. Ranked 73rd out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 12th out of 17 South East Asia, East Asia and Oceania countries, and 71st out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language Mongolian, English.

Information channels
Mongolia’s public broadcaster competes with privately-owned and satellite and cable outlets. Press freedom is generally respected, says the US-based NGO Freedom House. But media ownership is opaque and many journalists self-censor to avoid offending political or business interests. Reporters Without Borders says that more than half of all the defamation cases in Mongolia are brought against journalists and media. Despite a high level of literacy, newspaper circulations tend to be small. Some titles are published by political parties. BBC World Service broadcasts on 103.1 FM in Ulan Bator.

The press

Odriyn Sonin (Daily News) – private daily
Onoodor – private daily, the country’s biggest
Zuuny Medee – private daily
Unen (Truth) – Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party daily, the country’s oldest newspaper, founded in 1920
The UB Post – English-language weekly

Television

Mongolian National Broadcaster (MNB) – national, public broadcaster
TV 25 – private
UBS TV – owned by Ulan Bator city government
C1 – private
TV5 – private
TV9 – private

Radio

Mongolian Radio – public, sole national broadcaster

News agency

Montsame – state-owned, English-language pages

Internet Data

Internet users
84.3% penetration, 2.89 million

Share of web traffic by device
58.81% mobile phones, 40.35% computers (laptops and desktops), 0.84% tablet devices and 0.01% other devices.

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
18.37  Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
52.47 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 140.2%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 80.9%

Most popular web search engines
Google (95.57%), Bing (3.03%), Yahoo! (0.54%), YANDEX (0.37%),  Baidu (0.22%), other (0.28%).

Most used social media
Facebook (87.91%), Pinterest (4.74%), Twitter (3.36%), YouTube (1.79%), Instagram (1.66%), reddit (0.29%), LinkedIn (0.13%), other (0.12%).

Social statistics

Life expectancy
71 yrs (2021)

Corruption perceptions Index
Mongolia scored 33 out of 100, ranked 116 out 180 countries worldwide.

Current health expenditure
4.94% of GDP

CO2 emissions
6.4 metric tons per capita

World Happiness Index
Mongolia ranked 68 out of 146 countries, with a score of 5.761.

Current education expenditure
91.1% of total expenditure in public institutions.