Mongolia has a population of only 2.28 million (data 20 13), which is not as good as Shenzhen Longhua new district, but its area is as high as1560,000 square kilometers, making it the second largest landlocked country in the world after Kazakhstan.
Therefore, Mongolia is a typical resource-based country with a vast territory and few people. It stands to reason that people should live a rich life, such as Australia, which is also rich in mineral resources and sparsely populated.
But the fact is that in recent years, Mongolia's economy has collapsed and people's lives are struggling on the edge.
According to the data released by Mongolian Statistics Bureau, in the first three quarters of 20 17, Mongolia's economy grew by 5.8% year-on-year, while China's growth was 6.9% and the global growth was 2.7%. The data seems pretty good.
However, this 5.8% growth rate is actually an illusion, because the Mongolian currency has depreciated too much. Tugrik depreciated 15.57% in the first three quarters of 20 17 and 20 16 years.
Therefore, if converted into US dollars, in the first three quarters of 20 17 years, Mongolia's GDP was only US$ 81540,000, down 2.7% year-on-year, and this economic decline has been going on for several years.
As far as the economic aggregate is concerned, outer Mongolia is only 1/26 of Inner Mongolia, which is not as good as a county in Inner Mongolia. On the other hand, the whole country of Outer Mongolia is already heavily in debt. The debt it owns is too heavy for the country to bear, and the loan interest alone is as high as 23 billion US dollars, equivalent to 2.8 times the national GDP.
In 20 15, Mongolia fell into economic crisis and its currency collapsed. In a televised speech, Joy Gilles Suellen, then finance minister, said that the government could no longer pay the salaries of civil servants or the army. Under the bad economy, the lives of more than 2 million Mongolians are not guaranteed. In 20 17, the population unemployment rate in Mongolia was as high as 9. 1%.
The owner of a small supermarket on the edge of the Mongolian yurt area in the capital Ulaanbaatar told the reporter, "In the past few years, among the 10 people she knew who were engaged in low-tech jobs such as loading and unloading or driving trucks, 8 were unemployed."
"People can't afford luxury goods like cakes, even during the year-end holidays." She said, "They use the money saved from food to buy fuel for the stove. We do not have many customers now. "
Moreover, at the end of 20 15, the chairman of Mongolian solidarity trade union said that "the miners' families were starving to death" and then directly set himself on fire.
Therefore, regardless of the national economy and people's livelihood, Outer Mongolia is a typical failed country.
He didn't die, because China gasped.
Mongolia can be said to be on the verge of bankruptcy, but it didn't fail because we helped it.
From 2065438 to February 2007, in order to stabilize Mongolia's economy and prevent its collapse, the International Monetary Fund provided Mongolia with a loan of 5.5 billion US dollars.
Among them, the People's Bank of China renewed the local currency swap agreement of RMB 654.38+05 billion (about US$ 2.2 billion), accounting for more than one third of the US$ 5.5 billion rescue plan.
On the other hand, Mongolia's foreign trade is also heavily dependent on China.
For example, in the first half of 20 17, Mongolia's total import and export trade was US$ 5,036.4 million, and its trade with China was US$ 34 164 billion, accounting for 68% of Mongolia's total foreign trade.
Among them, Mongolia exported US$ 2,803.6 billion to China, up 56.6% year-on-year, accounting for 90.3% of its total exports; Imports from China amounted to US$ 612.8 million, up 2 1. 1% year-on-year, accounting for 3 1.7% of its total imports.
In other words, without China's help and support, Outer Mongolia could not survive at all, but as long as China exerted a little effort, it would burp.
Reasons for Mongolia's Leaping over Poverty
As the saying goes, "If something goes wrong, there must be a demon." The country has become like this, and then compare the success of Inner Mongolia. So there must be something wrong with outer Mongolia. In my opinion, there are three main reasons why Outer Mongolia is "poor":
First, the economic structure is single and unreasonable.
Outer Mongolia's economy is still in a primitive state and its structure is extremely unreasonable. According to the statistics of the first half of 20 17, the proportion of mining industry is as high as 23.4%, and that of agriculture is as high as 14.8%, and these two industries are extremely limited in terms of added value, industrial chain and employed population.
In contrast, China's real estate industry only accounts for about 6% of GDP, but it has driven a huge chain from steel and cement in the upstream, to home appliances and homes in the middle, and to decoration in the downstream, attracting a huge employment population.
(Source: Beihai Mansion)
Second, political turmoil, constant struggles and short-sighted policies.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Mongolia, like other Soviet countries, practiced multi-party politics. However, after more than ten years of experiments, Mongolia's political situation under multi-party politics has become increasingly unstable, with frequent government changes and constantly changing policies, and all parties have fallen into mutual attacks and infighting. Experts on Mongolia believe that in recent years, the defects of Mongolia's political system and legal system have increasingly become the bottleneck restricting the country's development.
Third, the unrealistic foreign policy of "the third neighbor"
Mongolia is a typical landlocked country with only two neighboring countries, China and Russia, but it is unrealistic to put forward the foreign policy of "the third neighboring country". (The new president specially emphasized this policy after he took office. )
The so-called "third neighbor" policy, to put it bluntly, relies on the strength of the United States and Japan to counter the influence of China and Russia on Mongolia.
This is somewhat similar to the "glorious isolation policy" implemented by Britain in order to equalize the German law in the European continent. But the problem is that Mongolia does not have the advantage of being surrounded by the sea by Britain and has no access to the sea. Instead, it is surrounded by China and Russia.
Russia itself is a country rich in resources. It does not lack resources, but also makes a living by selling resources. So it is impossible to help Mongolia sell resources. So the only channel and market for export is China.
For example, in the first half of 20 17, of Mongolia's total export trade, the export value of mineral products reached 2,554.9 million US dollars, accounting for 82.3% of the total export value, and 90% of the exports were to China and Inner Mongolia. But from the perspective of national strategy, it is impossible for China to help Mongolia sell its resources to the United States, Japan and other western countries. Therefore, in this way, Mongolia has a lot of resources, but still can only live a poor life.