The first-ever Export Mongolia International Business Forum and Exhibition commenced on October 28 and 29 in Ulaanbaatar, with nearly 1,000 policymakers, businessmen and researchers in attendance. The forum aimed to endorse active participation of public and private sectors, increase export products, and attract investors.
The forum was organized in accordance with the prime minister’s declaration to make October the “month of export”, and the national export support campaign. It was attended by specialists and representatives from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Development Fund, National Development Agency, Mongolian National Branding Council, International Trade Center, National University of Mongolia, and Development Bank. International delegates from the USA, Japan, Canada, India, Australia and Belarus also joined along with representatives from Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit and Asian Business Association.
The slogan for the two-day event was “One Goal, One Road, One Development”, calling out national companies to enter international markets under one united policy rather than taking multiple approaches. The forum is also directed to expand foreign relations, support exportation operations, and ensure the implementation of the national exportation and government projects.
Attracting over 350 businesses, the Export Mongolia Forum featured business meetings, workshops, seminars and trade fair, and an industrial experience sharing tour. Mongolian brands got the opportunity to showcase their products and services at the expo and the top brands won certificates, enabling them to enter “Made in Mongolia” event in Japan.
Opening the forum, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Ch.Ulaan thanked national producers for dedicating their knowledge, skills and hard work to diversifying exports and the economy, as well as developing national production.
“The most important pillar of the three development pillars of Mongolia is food, agriculture and light industry. In this sense, we’re aiming to implement the Mongolia-Export Program step by step. The outcome of this will be the creation of favorable export product production, investment and business environments; increased variety of value-added products; higher product competitiveness; higher ratio of agricultural products in exportation; and increased export revenue,” the minister said.
In 2018, Mongolia traded with 156 countries and the total trade turnover reached 12.9 billion USD with export accounting for seven billion MNT and import taking account for 5.9 billion USD. Exports of knitted and textile products increased 21.7 percent year-over-year in 2018, while products of animal origin and readymade food products jumped by 6.8 percent and 5.5 percent respectively. Taking this into account, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry sees potential to surge value-added exports. According to Ch.Ulaan, the ministry will pay special attention to producing export products and services, developing export-oriented professional consulting services, provide loan services for SME, and support SME via non-financial routes.
Participants stressed the need to diversify the economy using inexhaustible resources.
