Economist: “Booming Mongolia – Mine, all Mine”

By Julian Dierkes

An article in the January 21 2012 edition of The Economist vividly describes Ulaanbaatar and Oyu Tolgoi in the winter of 2012. The story that some have been telling for some years, “Mongolia is the next Eldorado” is repeated here with only some cautionary notes on Dutch disease, inflation and the like.

Some of the usual suspects when it comes to foreign views of Mongolian development, turn up in this article, like Munhkbayar of the Ongi River Movement and the Hon. Oyun. Ms Oyun especially is a wonderful interlocutor when it comes to understanding contemporary Mongolia, of course.

What I find missing in the article is the extent to which the promise of a mining boom is skewing and distorting all aspects of Mongolian development – economic, political and social.

This is the point I made when I presented at a symposium at Hokkaido University yesterday.

About Julian Dierkes

Julian Dierkes is a sociologist by training (PhD Princeton Univ) and a Mongolist by choice and passion since around 2005. He teaches in the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He toots @jdierkes@sciences.social.
This entry was posted in Democracy, Economics, Media and Press, Mining, Mining, Oyu Tolgoi, Policy, Politics, Research on Mongolia and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

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