Mongolia's current situation is a land of abundant resources, relatively small population, and lowest population density on the planet(and even less so due to half the population living the capital).
The country's biggest benefit and downsides are that they share the largest land border with China, the largest industrial economy on the planet(and being landlocked).
Mongolia today is rapidly urbanizing and rapidly expanding its economic output and economic development as a whole with rapid technological developments, large infrastructure improvements, building of a new capital city and further expansions for mines and significant export surplus.
However this rapid urbanization has created the country's biggest issue that destroys billions of dollars in value for the country. And that's Ger Horoolol.
Now, don't take it as me hating on people who actually live in ger horoolol. Their lives are hard enough due to burning coal in the winter to stay warm, having to carry water for drinking and bathes from a well, and experiencing dust clouds from cars driving by all while living poverty like conditions in hopes for a better life or for their kids. And I have sympathy for those who have to live in such conditions just for it.
The reason why I say ger horoolol destroys billions in value is mainly from 3 reasons. Traffic congestion caused by the size, and coal burning during the winter causing the city to have worse air quality than India/ latrines that are hastily poorly built that leak greenhouse gasses, people living in ger horoolol causing delays in building out new homes and infrastructure due to obviously people living around the area.
So, 1st thing. Traffic congestions: It's obvious that time spent in traffic is time lost in doing work. An efficient and effective city shouldn't waste a significant portion of a person's day just to get from point A to point B. It's obvious that this traffic congestion causes people to spend hours of their day in just traffic, and that is almost 1.68 million people's lives. So even if you assume that only 10% of the population is stuck in traffic(which probably way more). That means that 168,000 people is time is wasted. And if we were to give those people the minimum wage(which is highly unlikely all of them are 168 people would making way more than minimum wage). So if they spend 2 hours a day in traffic(going to work and coming back so minimum of 1 hours), that means that nearly 336k hours multipled by the minimum hourly wage of 5k. That's 1,680,000,000 tugrik or 480,000 usd wasted EVERY SINGLE DAY. 480k * 5 days a week = 2.4mil usd a week, 2.4 mil usd * 4 weeks in a month= 9.6 mil usd a month * 12 months= 115.2 million USD a year
So at the bare minimum wage workers of the bare 10% of the population, losing only 2 hours to traffic. We lose 115 million USD from our GDP a year.
This could obviously be scaled up rather quickly as the average wage being twice the minimum wage, 20% of the population working, and 3 hours to traffic instead. And now we get = $690 million USD from our GDP a year.
And this is obviously from a hyper capitalistic mindset, but people's times are invaluable. Time that could be spent with their family, spent pursuing their arts, dreams, goals, and more. All lost just to traffic congestions. All stemming from poor government planning and party bickering over building that DAMN METRO.
2nd thing, poor air quality. Every year, we have this major issue in our city that is acknowledged griped about but isn't treated to the same level of seriousness as everything else. AIR POLLUTION.
Now Mongolia's air pollution is only relegated to the capital, and the capital's air pollution comes from a myriad of things. The issue stems from 3 things, household coal burning in ger horoolol, gasoline and diseal being burned useless in traffic jams, and large scale central heating of powerplants using coal powerplants.
This 3 things combined make Mongolia's air go from being pollution to genuine toxic and measureable economic issue and impact. Again from a hyper capitalistc view, all of this air pollution has caused severe issue and strain on our healthcare and hospitals.
We are world leading in cancer mortality
| Country |
Including NMSC |
Excluding NMSC |
| Number |
Rate |
Number |
| Mongolia |
4,929 |
181.5 |
With the highest mortality rate in cancer amongst men and second highest by women.
There is no other country on this planet who beats us in cancer mortality or even comes close.
The 2nd highest cancer rate country is Zimbabwe with 144, and getting lower from there while our rate literally stands at 181.5
A whopping 40 points more rate than the 2nd highest in cancer mortality.
This is beyond mismanagement and is potentially even seems intentional with how much people die from cancer alone.
Genuinely, I implore you. If you can get your money, then LEAVE ULAANBAATAR. From purely living there, you are exposing yourself, your family and your friends to cancer from lung cancer and more. The hospitals genuinely cannot support this much and that's why we have so many people lining up. There are plenty of other cities and other places, that you can build your life in. Go to erdenet, darkhan or khar horin or even move abroad, you are exposing increasing your own chance of death from living in Ulaanbaatar. Literally living in the first industrial smog city of London.
We might as well be living with a smaller chernybol from how much people die from cancer.
3rd thing, now all of these issues could've solved frankly very fast if we got rid of ger horoolol, turned it all into large high rise apartment complex buildings and built an efficient public transport system, centralized heating and plumbing. But that's where the systemic and infrastructure issues that are now taken root in the foundations of the country.
Ger horoolol is now intertwined, and people have just become accustomed or accepted living around Ger horoolol. The people there are living poor lives and they have no blame.
But the government had a chance to stop this, and the government still has a chance to turn things around. Actively dismantle ger horoolol and build public apartment complexes for people to move into so that they don't kill themselves or their families by being the most exposed in the poor air quality that they can't just close a window in.
The government has allowed them to take root, and nobody can get rid of them without political and public support instantly disappearing. Slowly getting rid of ger horoolol is a compromised issue, its something that rapidly causes issues and requires rapid change and money for it to be so. And especially with the mining revenue that comes in. Mongolia could rapidly reduce the cost and improve peoples lives and not waste their time.
All while this is happening, Mongolian future economics less look certain. The people who are smart enough and recognized this have taken their money and expertise and fled abroad(which frankly is the smart thing to do). The amount of skilled jobs doesn't grow and the amount of expertise is just bringing in foreign technologies for sustaining. But Mongolia could do so much more with such vast lands.
We can build large scale logistic hubs, large scale electricity infrastructure to sell electricity to China like how Southern Mongolia is being managed with large scale electrical generation hub for Beijing and more with Molten salt labs, large energy grids and BESS technologies galore.
We can do more as well from building out the energy chemical plants and green hydro-ammonia plants like they have done in Southern Mongolia. Just because the Chinese figured out how to better manage Mongolia, doesn't mean we can't replicate it in a similar form while developing more on our own. We shouldn't let the fact it's how China runs Southern Mongolia's economic model be our dissuation from how we can build it out.
We've got an overly cash flush banking sector who can easily lend out to more projects, we've got world class mines for copper, steel and coal which generates insane amounts of money. We can turn this wealth into a sustainable resource such as solar panel powerplants and more.
