Thursday, 30th March 2006 (3215 views)

Mongolia is currently experiencing massive economic growth on the back of rising gold prices and potential for the mining and discovery of precious metals.

The mineral sector in the Asian state accounts for nearly 20 per cent of GDP, which is almost double that of four years ago, and the economic growth rate has been between seven and ten per cent over the past two years.

Mongolian prime minister Mieagombo Enkhbold, who only recently took office, has said that one of his priorities is developing and exploiting the country's substantial mineral resources.

As part of this plan Prime Minister Enkhbold has secured $25 million in loans from Japan for the first time since Yen lending was suspended to Mongolia, as a result of outstanding debts to Russia, in 2001.

"It is impossible to separate the current future economic growth of Mongolia from the development of mineral resources," the Prime Minister told Reuters. "Over 60 per cent of our exports are from the sector."

With a total GDP of $6 billion putting Mongolia outside the top 150 economies of the world and one-third of the population of 2.5 million living in poverty, economic development cannot come quickly enough.

The signs are good that the situation will improve however, as multinational gold mining corporations will look to cash in on what are believed to be vast mineral resources within the Himalayan state's borders.

 

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