MONGOLIA AND THE UNESCAP

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Since joining the Commission in 1961, Mongolia has been working with the UNESCAP on issues such as trade and investments, the environmental protection, statistics, poverty reduction, energy, disaster risk reduction, transit transportation, trade facilitation, and protecting the interests of landlocked developing countries among others. 
The successive Executive Secretaries of the Commission paid official visit to Mongolia in 1964, 1968, 1974, 1982, 1995, 2002, 2006 (the main guest from the United Nations on the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Great Mongolian State), in 2011 and 2016 (ASEM Finance Ministers' Meeting)and in 2019 respectively. 

Mongolia has sought to contribute to the activities of the Commission. For instance, Mongolia served as the Chair of the 45th, 55th and 75th Sessions of the UNESCAP. Mongolia has been a member of several the Commission’s Committees such as the Asia-Pacific Development Steering Committee, Statistics Committee, the Asia Pacific Technology Transfer Center, and the Center for Agricultural Engineering and Mechanization. 

With the support of the UNESCAP, in 2016 the Governments of Mongolia, PRC and RF signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on International Road Transport along the Asian Highway Network, through which each country has agreed to give the other two countries traffic rights for international road transport operation on the parts of Asian Highway routes AH3 and AH 4 connecting their respective territories.

With 2019 parliamentary approval of Mongolia’s accession to the APTA Agreement, Mongolia has deposited the instruments of accession with the Executive Secretary of the UNESCAP in September 2020. With the accession to APTA effective from 1 January 2021, Mongolia is going to simultaneously reduce tariff for exports from other APTA member countries and become a beneficiary of concessions by other member countries. Mongolia considers APTA as an important market for the country’s trade and investments, which account for nearly 67 percent of trade turnover and 30 percent of foreign direct investment and the Government of Mongolia attaches high priority to integrating the national economy into regional and global markets. With its accession to the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement, Mongolia believes that it will help the country to further expand its trade and economic cooperation with the member nations, contribute to diversification of its economy as well as more active involvement in regional integration processes. 

Mongolia is appreciative of the UNESCAP’s support in the operationalization of the International Think Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries, the only UN Institute operating in the country.

The UNESCAP has recently organized a series of training-workshops on capacity building to accelerate the implementation of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor Programme.