Mongolia is preparing to invite proposals for public-private partnerships that would make a combined 38.3 trillion tugrik (USD15.95 billion) in investments to support sustainable development.

Mongolia’s economy grew an annual 6.1 percent in 2018’s first quarter, compared with 5.1 percent last year and 1 percent in 2016. It was good result of strong demand for commodities.

‘Even though we have good figures on the economy we still have issues to solve,’ G.Zandanshatar Gombojav, chief cabinet secretary, told the Mongolian Economic Forum on Monday.

The plan to get private-public partnerships will involve 113 projects. The government has not provided details, but officials said they will include transportation infrastructure near the largely undeveloped Tavan Tolgoi coal mine.

‘Nobody would believe in a fairy tale that in two years there will be 38.3 trillion tugriks in investment,’ said B.Lkhagvajav, chairman of the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, speaking at Monday forum. ‘It will barely reach 2 trillion tugriks.’ He said the situation was not helped by political instability, noting that Mongolia had four prime ministers and around 60 government ministers in just four years.

In 2017, Mongolia received USD10.3 billion in foreign and domestic direct investment, up 44 percent from a year earlier, thanks largely to mining, G.Zandanshatar said.

Mongolia’s biggest project is the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in the Gobi desert, run by Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, launched in 2009.

But political disputes have delayed its expansion, and it has been the subject in a corruption investigation that has led to the arrest of two former prime ministers and an ex-finance minister who signed the 2009 investment deal. (Reuters)