Although Mongolia’s inflation hiked to the Bank of Mongolia's (BoM) target level in 2017, the BoM expects that the inflation will be stable in line with the objectives of the monetary policy. As reported by the National Statistics Office, the national inflation rate reached 6.9 percent and 8 percent in Ulaanbaatar city as of January 2018, due to increase in excise taxes on some products, such as tobacco and fuels.

This was mainly resulted by the 16.7 percent price increase of housing, water, electricity and fuel groups, 24.3 percent of vehicle sales price and 9.1 percent increase of tobacco price. In January, a total of 31.1 percent of consumer goods and services of 344 market basket prices increased compared to the previous month and the prices of 51 goods selected out of 100 food products was raised.

The BoM views that the metal components in copper concentration will increase and the increased investment in the non-mining sector will boost the economic growth. It is also expected that FDI, which has been slowing down in recent years, is likely to increase this year. For instance, the Governor of BoM disclosed that around USD 1 billion is expected to be brought into the economy in 2018.

Oyunbayar.N