Mongolia hosted official activities held by the Mongolian government as part of the “Mongolia Transport Week 2023” in early November 2023. Participating in the “week” were the nation’s prime minister, the Speaker of the State Great Khural, the Minister and Vice Minister of Road and Transport Development, representatives of major foreign and Mongolian corporations, the Civil Aviation Authority of Mongolia…

The Mongolian leadership’s unwillingness to express a clear desire to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is often interpreted by various experts as a demonstration of the country’s rejection of expanding partnerships with “non-Western” powers, as well as a peculiar gesture of distrust towards China. No one in Mongolia sees an immediate need for the country’s full SCO membership; the country is already surrounded by the organization’s space…

The 25^th meeting of the Intergovernmental Russian-Mongolian Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation was held on 23 October 2023 in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The meeting was jointly chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation V. Abramchenko and Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development of Mongolia Ch. Khurelbaatar. The main results of the meeting, although not notable for the abundance of new agreements and programmes, were marked by the emergence and return to the field of bilateral…

Mongolia signed a number of international air transport agreements in October 2023. So, on October 17 of this year, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation of Mongolia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and an air service agreement with Vietnam, both of which stated that the parties were willing to give up their airspace to allow free passage for their aircraft. A similar agreement was signed the day before with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic’s aviation authorities. A week earlier, namely on October 10, 2023…

In 1981 Mongolia’s “space pioneer,” the astronaut Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa, made a flight on the Salyut 39 mission. He later became the head of the Russian-Mongolian Friendship Association A great deal has changed in Mongolia since then, not least the political system and the country’s economic and social development priorities. For a long time Mongolia could not afford to dream about having a space program, first because of its struggles to alleviate the acute poverty and other woes caused by “economic liberalization,” and…

On October 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Mongolian counterpart Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 3rd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. This meeting was attended by ministers from both nations, transportation ministers, the Vice-Premier of the Russian Federation, the head of the Russian Economic Development Ministry, and the CEOs of three significant Russian corporations: Russian Railways…

On October 10 Mongolia’s president, Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh, landed in Paris. Upon arrival, as he stepped onto the boarding ramp he was formally welcomed by the French Ambassador to Mongolia, the Mongolian Ambassador to France and the French Minister of Energy. On October 11, the Mongolian president had a meeting with the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. Among the matters they touched on during their meeting were a number of the most pressing issues affecting Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital…

If railway transport in Mongolia made a qualitative breakthrough and had many ambitious endeavours in 2023, the country’s road transport had a symbolic moment that took place in 2022. We are talking about achieving an epoch-making transport and communication task, namely the final connection by asphalt roads the administrative centres of all parts of the country, 21 aimags with the country’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. However, the preliminary results for 2023 in the field of road transport are slightly brightened up by such a significant event for Mongolia. 2023 brought about a breakthrough in the field of transit…

The first article in the series on the development of transport infrastructure in Mongolia described Mongolia’s projects in the field of railway transport implemented in 2022-2023. This second article provides a brief overview of the projects of Mongolian colleagues in the same field, which are currently being developed and have not yet reached the construction stage. The Mongolian long-term rail construction program up to the year 2030 is included in the country’s overall development programme “Long-Term Vision – 2030”, which, in turn, is a more detailed and structured part of the “Long-Term Vision – 2050” program. As part of the 2030 program (the projects described in the previous…

The onset of the first autumn cold weather is a sign that we can begin to summarise the first results of the various undertakings of 2023. This article is a brief overview of the Mongolian government’s preliminary results in the field of railway construction. It is worth noting that Mongolia has made significant progress in this sector this year. According to the medium-term state development programmes, 1,820 kilometres of railways are planned to be built in the country between 2020 and 2024. Already in 2022 and less than ten months from 2023…

On September 25, 2023, the visit of Vyacheslav Volodin, the Speaker of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to Mongolia, was concluded. In its content, Mr. Volodin’s visit to Mongolia was similar to the recent visit of the Speaker of the Mongolian Parliament, Gombojav Zandanshatar, to Russia, and marked the logical development and completion of those endeavors that had been outlined by the two Speakers back in Moscow. In addition to meeting with his Mongolian counterpart…

From the very beginning of its democracy, Mongolia has sought to define itself as an East Asian state, sometimes even fitting into the Asia-Pacific region (despite being a landlocked state). Recently, however, despite the continuation of the same trend in the country’s “geographical self-image,” Mongolia has begun to actively develop relations with Central Asian states as well. Although diplomatic relations between most Central Asian countries and Mongolia were established as early as 1992, they have not been very active. The only exceptions are Mongolia’s relations with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan…