According to the Mongol Bank’s daily record of USD coming in and going out of citizens’ services accounts, as of 2024, Mongolians earned 1.5 billion USD through services such as education, finance and medical care. However, they lost 4.6 billion USD to foreign countries. In essence, the USD earned by selling natural resources are being absorbed abroad, not in Mongolia.
Mongolians often purchase medical, educational and financial services from abroad. The tourism services account alone had a loss of 954.4 million USD last year. For example, the country earned 581.7 million USD through private travel, but lost 1.5 billion USD in return. Also, it earned 42.1 million USD through educational services, but lost 602.4 million USD to foreign countries.
The next service that loses the most USD from mining is transportation. The deficit in the transportation services account continues to grow year by year. Last year, the transportation-related services account suffered a deficit of 800 million USD. Basically, while 1.4 billion USD was lost in freight transportation alone, it earned 606.5 million USD. The majority of this loss, or 1.2 billion USD, was spent on freight transportation. However, passenger transportation services last year showed a relatively positive performance compared to previous years, when they incurred a deficit of 13.6 million USD.
The construction and financial services account recorded a deficit of 396 million USD last year. Construction and financial services alone earned 43.6 million USD, while the surplus was 223.8 million USD. Of course, this figure is growing as the economy recovers. Depending on the skills of Mongolians, they pay foreign consulting companies for financial services. Last year, Mongolians earned 12 million USD through their own financial knowledge. However, they paid 228.2 million USD to foreign consulting companies.
Due to the value of Mongolian knowledge, other business services are often purchased from abroad. For example, last year, Mongolia spent 458 million USD on professional and management consulting services, while 102 million USD was imported into Mongolia.
In general, the category of other business services has a large deficit. Through this type of service, while 499 million USD were sent abroad in 2020, it has increased to 1.1 billion USD in 2024. The maximum USD that is received back is more than 230 million USD. Moreover, as of last year, 706.6 million USD were sent abroad for architectural, engineering, scientific and technological services, and 121 million USD were received back.

Published Date:2025-05-28