The National Statistics Office (NSO) compiled a summary of all socioeconomic changes over the course of 2019 in its latest Social and Economic Report, published on January 16.

The report provides insights into changes between January to December 2019 in terms of population, employment, social indicators, social insurance and welfare, intellectual property, education, health, weather and air quality, disasters and accidents, crimes, money and loans, stock market, state budget, trade, commodity prices, business registry, agriculture and global economy and foreign markets.

Here are the highlights of the report.

POPULATION REACHES 3.3 MILLION

The national population amounted to 3.3 million people by end-2019 according to preliminary results, which suggests a 1.9 percent rise or increase of 63,100 people

Birth rate per 1,000 people became 24.3, death rate became 5.2, and crude growth rate became 19.1. This is reported declines of 0.1 point and 0.2 point in birth rate and death rate respectively.

In 2019, 80,251 Mongolian babies were born, with 2,028 babies (2.5 percent) delivered abroad. Birth rate per 1,000 capita is 0.2 to 3.5 points higher than the national average in Ulaanbaatar, Bayan-Ulgii, Khovd and Orkhon provinces, but lower by 0.1 to 12.9 points in other provinces.

Out of 17,195 people who died in 2019, 72 people (0.4 percent) died outside of the country. Death rate per 1,000 capita is higher than the national average by 0.1 to 0.6 points in Ulaanbaatar, Khuvsgul, Dornogovi, Sukhbaatar, Arkhangai, Bayankhongor, Dundgovi and Dornod provinces. On the other hand, the death rate in Bayan-Ulgii was the same as the national average but lower by less than 0.2 points in the remaining provinces.

UNEMPLOYMENT DOWN 7%

Labor agencies stated that 87,000 people registered as unemployed in 2019 and 27,200 people found jobs. While the number of newly registered unemployed people fell by 6,500 (6.9 percent), 1,600 (6.1 percent) more people found jobs compared to the previous year.

As of December, the number of people seeking jobs reached 37,000, 56 percent of whom are unemployed and 44 percent are looking for a new job. The total number of registered unemployed went down by 4,200 people (16.8 percent) compared to 2018 and by 380 people (1.8 percent) compared to the previous month.

According to NSO, the majority of the unemployed are women (52.4 percent) and 1.7 percent of them live with disabilities. By education, half of the unemployed had general education diploma.

The main reason for unemployment is lay off, reported labor agencies. Around 10,100 people registered as newly unemployed and out of them, 53.6 percent were either dismissed or fired.

4,600 FOREIGNERS WORK IN MONGOLIA ON CONTRACT

By end-2019, 4,600 foreigners from 95 countries were working under an employment contract or volunteering in Mongolia.

Most of these people are men (82.5 percent) and the rest women. Around 2,100 of foreign nationals are residing in Ulaanbaatar, 1,300 in the central region, 800 in the eastern region, 300 in Khangai region, and 100 are living in the western region.

By age group, most of employed foreigners (16.5 percent) are aged between 45 and 49, and only a few (0.4 percent) are under the age of 20. By sector of employment, 1,800 people are working in the mining and exploration sector, 990 in education, 759 in wholesale and retail activities and car repair services, 267 in industry, and 197 in construction. Another 156 foreigners are engaged in administrative and support activities, 151 in transportation and storage, 58 are working in an international organization or resident mission, 56 in services, and 2,000 are working in other sectors.

The number of foreigners working in Mongolia decreased by 5,800 people from Q3 2019.

The report shows that 36.2 percent of all foreign employees in Mongolia are Chinese, 8.8 percent Australian, 7.1 percent Russian, 6.1 percent Korean, 5.3 percent American, 4.3 percent Vietnamese, 3.7 percent Filipino, 3.5 percent African, 2.8 percent British, 2.6 percent Canadian, two percent Japanese, 1.9 percent Indian, 1.5 percent Indonesian, and the remaining are other nationals.

MONEY

Money supply (broad money or M2) reached 20.8 trillion MNT at the end of December 2019. It increased by 1.3 trillion MNT (6.8 percent) year-over-year.

This improvement was driven by increases of 923 billion MNT in savings held in tugrug and 464.2 billion MNT in savings held in foreign currencies.

In December, currency issued in circulation amounted to 897.4 billion MNT, a surge of 37.2 billion MNT (4.3 percent) from the previous month and a decrease of 71.2 billion MNT (7.4 percent) compared to the previous year.

LENDING

Loans outstanding amounted to 18.1 trillion MNT at the end of December, which is 870.4 billion MNT (5.1 percent) higher than the same period of 2018.

While overdue loans amounted to 824 billion MNT by end-2019, nonperforming loans over the banking system reached 1.8 trillion MNT. Overdue loans dropped by 14.9 percent from the previous month and by 24.8 percent from the previous year. Nonperforming loans were reduced by 4.8 percent from the previous month but rose by 2.3 percent from the previous year.

FOREIGN TRADE

Mongolia traded with 155 countries and total external trade turnover reached 13.7 billion USD, up by 860.6 million USD (6.7 percent).

Exports amounted to 7.6 billion USD and imports 6.1 billion USD, both rising 8.7 percent and eight percent respectively.

In December, products worth 564.2 million USD were exported and products worth 543.6 million USD were imported, leading to a surplus of 20.5 million USD, up by 12.9 million USD.

Mongolia traded mostly with Russia and China. Trade with China totaled 6.1 million USD and trade with Russia amounted to 2.06 million USD in the last 12 months.

Main importing partners were China, accounting for 33.6 percent; Russia, accounting for 28.2 percent; Japan, accounting for 9.6 percent; the USA, accounting for 4.7 percent; and South Korea, accounting for 4.4 percent.

While over half of imports from Russia were petroleum, almost 61 percent of all imports from Japan were passenger cars, and 14 percent of imports from China were trucks.