Introduction

After Mongolia acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1997, the Mongolian government has revised various bills related to direct and indirect foreign investment and trade.  From trade and foreign investment promotion viewpoints, it is pointed out, however, that Mongolia is lack of consulting system to resolve business troubles and of transparency on information and compliance, and the diversification of export items, capabilities of information collection and overseas market development are not optimized yet.  Besides that, lack of coordination and overlapping functions among investment promotion agencies are crucial in Mongolia.

The Mongolian government, therefore, with the help of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), through capacity building of private economic organizations and government officials, started the project for "Capacity Development for Promoting Foreign Direct Investment " in November 2010, in order to achieve, among others, functional enhancement of research and coordination for investment promotion, and service improvement to private sector on investment promotion services.

After the commencement of the project, a working group, consisting of Foreign Investment and Foreign Trade Agency (FIFTA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Finance, National Development and Innovation Committee and the representatives of business organizations, was established.  The project team is going to conduct activities with these relative agencies.

The first year’s activities and vital points are followings;

• institutional analysis of related agencies;
• value on ownership and leadership of the counterparts;
• asking for opinions from private sector and reflect them to the activities;
• the situation surveys for investment policy and investment promotion activity through Policy Framework for Investment (PFI);
• economic analysis seminars by function and level to four divisions at the FIFTA; and
• situation analysis of information technology and database systems.

The project will be conducted for three years, until 2013, and its ultimate goals are to formulate action plans to improve foreign investment environment in Mongolia, to study about the functions of the FIFTA and to provide suggestion to improve it, and to improve the working plans of investment services by the FIFTA.