Trade with Russia increases 50 percent

Mongolia’s trade with Russia has increased 50 percent to reach 503 million USD in the first four months of 2018, reported Mongol Bank.

The significant increase in trade puts Russia behind only China in terms of trade turnover for the first four months. In 2017, the total trade turnover between the two countries was 1.4 billion USD.

Mongolian authorities along with their Russian counterparts have adopted a goal to increase trade turnover between the two countries to two billion USD annually in the near future.

In the first quarter of 2018, Russia purchased 25 million USD worth of fluorspar from Mongolia, half of the total fluorspar exports. Meanwhile, Mongolia saw an increase of 464.2 million USD in imports, in which a 56.9 million USD increase in diesel fuel imports from Russia was a large factor. Russia is Mongolia’s biggest fuel supplier, accounting for upwards of 90 percent of fuel imports.

Recently, majority state-owned Russian oil explorer and exporter Rosneft has inked long-term contracts worth 2.1 billion USD for the supply of gasoline and diesel fuel to 12 Mongolian importers.

Rosneft supplies gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, fuel oil, bituminous materials and liquefied petroleum gases to Mongolia. After the previous agreement in 2014, Rosneft maintained over a 90 percent share in the fuel market of Mongolia.