SIGNIFICANCE OF MONGOLIAS THIRD NEIGHBOR POLICY TO ENSURE ITS ECONOMIC SECURITY (1990-2012)

Abstract

Having adopted a democratic system and a market economy since 1990,Mongolia has ended its transition period and stepped on the road of an intensive economic development using its enormous natural resources. In this historical moment, maintaining and ensuring national economic security is crucial for Mongolias future prosperity and wellbeing.

Therefore from this point of view, this study tries to address security issues from an economic perspective taking into account that balanced investment and trade policy are the most important factor for Mongolia in ensuring its economic security and achieving long-term economic growth and development.

Mongolia has been attempting to implement the Third Neighbor Policy for the past two decades in order to create a more favorable condition for its national security and to address its economic and development challenges by developing economic cooperation with development countries. However, this study reveals that it is still economically overly dependent on its two large neighbors and third neighbors are still weak in eliminating this dependence.

Therefore, the research concludes that in order to overcome economic security challenges it is extremely necessary to diversify its economic structure and an effective implementation of the Third Neighbor Policy is imperative. The Policy will mitigate issues such as diversification of foreign investment and trade and aid in addressing other development challenges.