Interview: China-Mongolia Expo to greatly boost bilateral trade, economic ties: Mongolian official

ULAN BATOR, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- The upcoming China-Mongolia Expo will make a great contribution to the expansion of trade and economic ties between the two neighbors, Mongolian Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Khayangaa Bolorchuluun has said.

The expo is scheduled to take place in Hohhot, capital city of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on Sept. 6-10.

"Our two countries agreed to hold this expo every two years. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has not been held since 2019," Bolorchuluun said, noting that compared with the previous three expos, this 4th one will be held on a much larger scale.

"Preparations for the expo are generally complete. We expect that by holding the 4th China-Mongolia Expo, the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries will increase significantly," said Bolorchuluun, who leads the working group of the Mongolian side to prepare for the expo.

"China, which is our country's southern neighbor, is developing rapidly," he said, stressing that Mongolia has to keep up with the speed of China's development and cooperate with China.

"We have a lot to learn from China. Holding such an expo will allow our companies to learn (from) and exchange experiences with Chinese companies, cooperate with them and further expand trade and economic relations between the two," Bolorchuluun said, adding that during the expo, new know-how, experiences and innovations will be exchanged and agreements will be concluded.

At least 500 companies from Mongolia are expected to participate in the expo. In the previous three expos, most of Mongolian exhibitors were light industry companies, but this time more food manufactures will participate, the minister said.

"Mongolia aims to export organic food products such as meat, camel milk drinks and sea buckthorn to China. Therefore, many food manufactures are going to participate in this expo," he said.

China has been Mongolia's largest trading partner since 1999.

Mongolia and China achieved their bilateral trade target of 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, and are now actively cooperating in all fields to further increase the volume to 20 billion dollars, said the minister.

"So, in order to achieve the goal, I believe that it is very important to organize (more) joint events like this expo," he said.

Mongolia's foreign trade turnover expanded 27.9 percent year-on-year to 11.8 billion dollars in the first half of this year, according to the country's National Statistics Office.

China remained Mongolia's top export destination and import supplier in the January-July period, accounting for 73 percent of the latter's total foreign trade, data from the statistical agency showed.