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July 2008: With new exploitation of mineral wealth some people can afford to eat in foreign-owned restaurants and drive expensive SUVs, and they are resented by some who are less affluent. According to the BBC, "a third of the population struggles to survive on $2 a day."
Mongolia has two major political parties. The dominant party is the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), which is slightly to the left of the minority party, the Democratic Party, which favors more free enterprise. Both parties welcome foreign investment and Western mining companies.
In elections on July 1, the MPRP won 47 seats in parliament and the Democratic Party 26. (There are 76 seats in parliament, 3 seats going to others, apparently the same "big tent" politics as in the United States, Germany and elsewhere.) International observers described the elections as fair. But from among those disappointed by the election results came charges of fraud. It is written that they are fed up with the MPRP not having delivered on its promises.
South of Russia. North of China. Landlocked. In size equivalent to 1,251 by 1,251 kilometers or 782 by 782 miles. Capital: Ulaanbaatar
The great Mongol empire of the 13th and 14th centuries, the empire created by Genghis Khan and his sons, fragmented. Frequent clan warfare among the Mongols was followed by domination by China under the Manchus. After the Manchu dynasty fell in 1911, the Mongols declared independence. A Chinese warlord sent troops into Mongolia in 1919, which were expelled in 1921 by anti-Bolshevik Russians. The brutality of the Chinese and the anti-Bolshevik Russians magnified Mongol desire for independence. Mongol nationalists asked for and received help from the Bolsheviks, and together these two forces took over the country, retaining as a figurehead rule a Buddhist leader.
During Stalin's rule, purges took place in Mongolia, including attacks on monasteries and the executions of thousands of Buddhist monks. Three percent of Mongolia's population, it is estimated, were killed in these times.
During the arguments between the Soviet and Chinese rulers in the early sixties, the Chinese described it as fortunate that the Mongols had conquered the Russians, bringing civilization to the backward Russians. The Soviets described Genghis Khan as a barbarian. During the 1960s the Soviets moved to suppress Genghis Khan as a father figure among the Mongols. An official in Mongolia's communist government sponsored a scholarly symposium on Genghis Khan and wanted the creation of a marker at Genghis Khan's birthplace. For this he went the way of the Hungarian communist, Imre Nagy. He was executed -- cut down with an ax.
Mongolia maintained close ties with the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union collapsed. There was no more soviet aid. Economic recession followed. The Communists gave up power in 1996, allowing elections that brought to power the Democratic Union Coalition (DUC). As a strong opposition, the communists, embodied in the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), stalled a move toward free market economics, and in 2000 they regained power, winning 72 of Mongolia's 76-seat legislature.
Figures unless otherwise stated are from the CIA Factbook.
Factbook: "Economic activity in Mongolia has traditionally been based on herding and agriculture. Mongolia has extensive mineral deposits. Copper, coal, gold, molybdenum, fluorspar, uranium, tin, and tungsten account for a large part of industrial production and foreign direct investment. Soviet assistance, at its height one-third of GDP, disappeared almost overnight in 1990 and 1991 at the time of the dismantlement of the USSR. The following decade saw Mongolia endure both deep recession because of political inaction and natural disasters, as well as economic growth because of reform-embracing, free-market economics and extensive privatization of the formerly state-run economy."
Estimated per capita GDP:
2008 $3,200
2007 $2,900
2006 $2,700
GDP annual growth rate:
2008: 8.9%
2007: 9,9%
2006: 8.6%
Unemployment rate:
2008: 2.8%
2007: 3%
Exports copper, apparel, livestock, animal products, cashmere, wool, hides, fluorspar, other nonferrous metals.
Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1997. In the year 2002 it had a growth rate of 4.1 percent.
Deaths: 6.16, down from 7.03 in 2005. Births: 21.09, down from 21.51 in 2005.
Estimate for July 2008. 2.996 million, up from 2.8 million in 2005. Growth rate estimated for 2008: 1.493 percent per year.
Density estimated for 2005: 1.8 persons per square kilometer.
Infant mortality estimated for 2008: 41.24, down from 53.79 in 2005 (deaths before the age of one year, per 1,000 live births).
Average life expectancy at birth estimated for 2008: 67.32 years, up from 64.52 in 2005
Living with HIV/AIDS, ages 15 to 49: 0.1 percent (2003)
Internet users were 1.8 percent of the population in the year 2002, compared to 40 percent for the UK.
A Mongolian, Khashbaatar Tsagaanbaatar, won the bronze for judo at the Athens, 2004, Olympics.
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
Copyright © 2008 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.