The PM has canceled this year’s Mongolia Economic Forum to manage external risks and reinforce budget discipline. Yet the larger issue lies elsewhere. The investment law has remained stalled for nearly 3 years. 

 Rhetoric vs. Reality

One of the core aims of the Mongolia Economic Forum is to attract foreign investment. In 2023, the event expanded its reach, drawing senior executives from Rio Tinto, as well as representatives from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, alongside delegates from 45 organizations. The ability to convene global investors marked a step forward. The lack of follow-through on reforms has since tempered that momentum.

•  Execution Gap: At the 2023 forum, policymakers signaled an ambitious reform agenda, promising legal revisions, broader investor support, and new entry points into Mongolia’s banking sector. In practice, progress on amending the Investment Law has stalled.

 The Cost of Uncertainty

Efforts to update the 2013 Investment Law have repeatedly faltered, reinforcing a wait-and-see stance among investors. Although reform discussions resurfaced in 2024, developments have since slowed. In the interim, foreign direct investment has remained concentrated in existing projects such as Oyu Tolgoi, while new inflows have declined by roughly 35%.

•  A Long Plateau: Mongolia’s peak year for foreign investment remains 2011, when inflows reached $5.7 billion, a level not matched in the 15 years since. More recently, FDI fell by $349.1 million year-on-year.
•  Structural Risks Persist: Assessments such as the US Investment Climate Statement continue to highlight policy inconsistency and legal uncertainty as persistent concerns.

Overall… Forgoing large-scale forums may deliver short-term fiscal savings. Private initiatives, such as those organized by Capital Markets Mongolia, have shown that investor engagement can proceed without heavy state involvement. The broader question is whether policy clarity and reform momentum can be sustained. Without them, the constraint on investment is unlikely to be the absence of forums, but the persistence of uncertainty.