Emerging and on the radar: Mongolia reaches out to the world

Few countries can still claim to conjure up a true aura of mystery in today’s super-connected world – and yet Mongolia is one of them, for myself and many others. Many people will cite Genghis Khan, the country’s notorious 12th century warrior turned national hero when asked what comes to mind when they think of Mongolia – and his legacy very much lives on in the country today: from the moment you hit the tarmac in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, you arrive at the airport that bears his name, while a popular half-day excursion will take you to a recently-erected monument of the warrior which is colossal by anyone’s standards.

Genghis Khan has gone down in history as having created the largest contiguous empire in history – stretching from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe. Today, Mongolia is again reaching out beyond its borders, although clearly in more peaceful ways this time.

The colossal statue of Genghis Khan, outside Ulaanbaatar. 

I’ve recently returned from a week in Mongolia, working with the World Bank Group on an exciting project to support the country in making reforms to its investment policy and promotion framework. The country is well known for its wealth of natural resources – particularly copper, gold and coal – and while there are untapped investment opportunities, particularly in the downstream value chain, other industries like agribusiness are now increasingly in the government’s sights for investment attraction. In a country where the livestock population is estimated to be more than 20 times greater than the human population, this is understandable.

During my week spent meeting and training officials from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry (MOFALI), the National Development Agency (NDA) and others, it became apparent that Mongolia has some promising opportunities to offer foreign investors in areas such as meat processing, dairy and cashmere products, and cattle farming.

From the promotion perspective, the challenges we’re now addressing with the Government are how to package the country’s investment value propositions in subsectors like these, to be attractive to potential investors, and then crucially, identifying the most effective way to take these propositions to market.

On this latter challenge, a significant step change will be required if Mongolia is to succeed in reaching out to – and attracting – potential investors. Investment promotion is ultimately an international sales undertaking, and as such requires proper resources. And so in a country where public resources are strained, a partnership-based approach to investment promotion will be important, bringing together Government bodies and ministries – including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its global network of embassies, as well as some private sector organisations to support this combined effort.

Next month, the Mongolian Economic Forum will welcome international stakeholders to Ulaanbaatar. I look forward to this and other future visits to Mongolia and hope I will be able to provide some updates on here on the progress our project makes in the coming months.