Russia and Mongolia will establish a join fund for investment cooperation. According to the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev, the fund will help Russian companies to better cooperate with Mongolian partners. A signing ceremony was held during the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. President Vladimir Putin said that the countries intend to jointly implement new projects, including in infrastructure, mining, energy, and agriculture.

According to the Kremlin, bilateral trade between Russian and Mongolia last year increased by 21 percent over the previous year to reach $1.65 billion. In the first six months of this year, trade jumped by 11 percent, to $800 million.

Founded in June 2011, the RDIF has the goal to make investments primarily in Russian enterprises together with leading foreign financial and strategic investors. To date, the RDIF has implemented more than 70 projects with a total volume of over 1.5 trillion rubles ($22.4 bln), covering 95% of the regions of the Russian Federation.

The joint investment initiative comes as welcome news following the IMF’s announcement that large-scale donor funding of the Mongolian economy will end on 2021.