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MongoliaTelecommunications
In 1921 Mongolia nationalized postal and telecommunications
services--then Russian-owned, Chinese-owned, and Danish-owned--
and placed them under the Postal and Telegraph Department of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With Soviet assistance, Mongolia
extended telephone and telegraph lines between 1923 and 1930,
inaugurated motorized intercity mail delivery in 1925, and began
radiobroadcasting in 1934 and television broadcasting in 1967.
Since the 1920s, Soviet aid--including technical assistance,
investment, and training--enabled Mongolia to create national
postal and telecommunications networks as well as to establish
international communications links. In the 1980s, the Ministry of
Communications, which ran the postal and the telecommunications
systems, emphasized expanding and upgrading the
telecommunications services and facilities to create a unified
communications system. This system included telephone, telegraph,
telex, radio, and television; it still relied on cooperation and
assistance from the Soviet Union and other Comecon countries.
In 1985 Mongolia's telephone, telegraph, and telex system
included 420 postal, telephone, and telegraph offices; 28,000
kilometers of telephone and telegraph lines; and 49,300
telephones. The Ministry of Communications was working to
introduce a unified digital data-transmission system, to upgrade
the telephone system to an automatic-switching network, to
increase the length of multiplex telephone channels, and to
establish a land-based mobile telephone network using earth
satellite facilities. Radio-relay lines provided intercity and
international, direct-dialing telephone links. Telex lines
connected Ulaanbaatar with Irkutsk and Moscow.
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English-language sources on the Mongolian economy are few; a
substantial literature exists in Russian, but little in that
language, or in Mongol, has been translated into English. In
English the best source on Mongolian economic affairs published
since 1970 is chapter 4, "The Economic System," in Mongolia:
Politics, Economics, and Society by Alan J.K. Sanders.
Articles by Sanders in the Far Eastern Economic Review
[Hong Kong], in scholarly journals, and in other reference
publications often deal with economic topics. Judith Nordby's
"The Mongolian People's Republic in the 1980s: Continuity and
Change" treats economic policies and problems. Michael Kaser's
"The Industrial Revolution in Mongolia" deals with Mongolian
industrialization, as does Alois Holub's "Mongolia: Modernizing
the Industrial Structure." "Manpower Policy and Planning in the
Mongolian People's Republic," by M. Lkhamsuren, examines labor
resources. William E. Butler's The Mongolian Legal System:
Contemporary Legislation and Documentation includes Mongolian
legal documents and commentary touching upon economics. Asian
Survey and the Far Eastern Economic Review's Asia
Yearbook contain annual surveys of developments in Mongolia,
including economic developments. Other sources for Mongolian
economic affairs are the Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Daily Report: East Asia; the Joint Publications Research
Service Mongolia Report, Mongolia [Ulaanbaatar];
and the Russian-English-French edition of National Economy of
the MPR for 65 years, 1921-1986. (For further information and
complete citations, see Bibliography).
Data as of June 1989
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