Only 360,000-370,000 of at least a million pieces of
property in Mongolia are officially registered, of which more that  190,000 are in Ulaanbaatar alone. This
unconcern for recording titles may be related to our nomadic life style, as
also to the 70 years of socialism when the concept of private ownership was not
favored. Participants at a seminar on Property Rights and Economic Growth
yesterday at the Press Institute, who included a Senior Counsellor of USAID,
Demir Ener, and P. Marianna from the capital rights project of the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, stressed the need to change practices, whatever their
origin. Economist D.Jargalsaikhan noted that Mongolians will be misfits in the
present order of things if they fail to realize the importance of rights over
capital, as a means to producing more capital.

The public apathy to what is theirs has encouraged those
in power to misuse public capital. For instance, registration of land titles
began only on May 1, 2003. Few citizens had shown any interest in owning land.
Land was first offered to each household and then to each citizen. Every
Mongolian can ask for 60 hectares of land in his or her name but at present
there is little demand outside the capital and other towns.