As of November, 2018 balance of payments deficit increased by USD 66.5 million and reached USD 117.7 million. As predicted by the ADB and the IMF current account deficits increased in the reporting period and exceeded USD 1.5 billion. Looking at outflows, in the first 11 months of 2018, USD 733 million was spent on transport services. Also USD 644 million was spent on tourism and USD 931 million was spent on business services. Mongolia exported 33.8 million tons of coal in the first 11 months exceeding the annual amount of 2017. Although coal export is increasing inflows, it’s also increasing transport spending.

In the reporting period, trade balance decreased by USD 673 million compared to last year with a surplus of USD 1.1 billion. The Central Bank believes that the decrease in trade balance is due to increasing imports. Particularly, import increased by 38 percent in November. Since the beginning of the year, imports have kept up 40 percent growth. However, the bulk of the growth in imports is attributable to investment products and industrial inputs.

During the reporting period, border import price of oil increased by 28 percent from a year ago, and by 4 percent from last month reaching USD 792 per ton.

Source: BloombergTv.mn