Mongolian foreign trade maintains growth as deficit widens

Mongolian foreign trade increased 3.3 percent or 304.3 million U.S. dollars in the first 10 months of 2012, the National Statistical Office of Mongolia (NSO) said Monday. According to the statistics, Mongolia has suffered a dramatic trade slowdown due to a sharp drop of minerals exports to world markets amid the global economic slowdown. The exports decreased 2.2 percent in the period compared to the same period of last year, lagging far behind the surging export increases in 2011 when the country registered a record trade volume of 11.3 billion dollars. Imports still continued its growth with a 7.2 percent increase in the period driven by the country's booming construction sector and the construction of the mining projects. The NSO statistics also showed that trade volume has reached 9404.0 million dollars, of which exports made up 3664.7 million dollars and imports made up 5739.3 million dollars. The trade balance registered a deficit of 2074.6 million dollars, an increase of 29.3 percent or 469.6 million dollars compared to the same period of last year. The widening trade deficit would further put pressure on the depreciating Mongolian currency tugrik. Analysts say Mongolian exports may see a boom after the country's giant copper-gold deposit Oyu Tolgoi launches its commercial production scheduled for the first half of 2013.