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Mongolia Trade Competitiveness Diagnostic: Special Focus - Trade Opportunities in Digital Services

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2024-01-22
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2024-01-22
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This note, prepared at the request of the Ministry of Economy and Development, aims to analyze selected opportunities for Mongolia to diversify its economy and identifies specific policy options to realize them. Mongolia’s growing dependence on mining exports, primarily to China creates vulnerabilities and reduces resilience, as exposed during recent external shocks. Policy makers therefore continue to emphasize the importance of diversifying the economy. Against this backdrop, this note identifies opportunities and offers recommendations to achieve this goal. The note builds on and complements existing work, including the 2020 country economic memorandum as well as previous policy notes on specific sectors, such as cashmere and meat production. Its focus is hence both in terms of sectoral coverage (digital services) and policies (trade policy and facilitation). The first chapter of the report analyzes Mongolia’s trade performance including diversification and sophistication and identifies constraints by focusing on trade policy and facilitation. The second chapter explores Mongolia’s potential to diversify into digital services, which can bypass the constraints associated with the exports of goods such as high transport costs and inefficiencies at the border. The note aims to help the government shape its long-term export strategy, which will support a more resilient, green, and inclusive recovery in the context of its new recovery policy (NRP).
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World Bank. 2024. Mongolia Trade Competitiveness Diagnostic: Special Focus - Trade Opportunities in Digital Services. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40938 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
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