B.Ganbat, a departmental head in the National Development
and Innovation Committee, says a proper development strategy for Mongolia must
have provision for setting up high-tech industry. The present situation, where
the country exports only raw and unprocessed output from the mining and
agriculture sectors, keeps the economy vulnerable to unpredictable pressures.
At present, over 90% of Mongolia’s exports are produced with low technology and
this has to change. Value has to be added to raw output if more wealth is to be
generated. Parliament has approved the government policy on how to develop a
high technology industrial sector and a transformation of the economy will
follow. Exclusive dependence on mining will give way to a multi-polar economy.

This will need financial institutions with new
orientation and the government is working on establishing a State-owned entity
likely to be called High Technology, Innovation, and Investment Corporation to
help develop a knowledge-based economy. The necessary human resources are being
prepared at the National Center of Nano-technology in the National University
of Mongolia, at the Food and Biotechnology Center in the Mongolian University
of Science and Technology, at the biomedical unit in the Medical Science
University, and in Jonon University. He stressed that nothing will happen
overnight as the example of other countries shows, but he dismissed doubts that
this is beyond Mongolia’s economic or intellectual capacity, and suggestions
that the country should instead import technology.

Knowledge and information are freely accessible in a
globalized world, and Mongolia will restrict imports to what it cannot design
locally, for many possible reasons. Its small population will be a helpful
factor in the development of high technology, Ganbat felt, and added that the
Autumn session of Parliament is likely to discuss the subject further.