Foreign investment into Mongolia isn’t just coming in the form of mining companies. Forecast to be one of the top five fastest growing economies in the next decade, Mongolia is attracting European investment, with Italy announcing it wants to open an embassy and invest in the country. Mongolia began trading with Italy in 1973. Mongolia exports leather, wool and cashmere to Italy, and imports facilities, manufacturing tools, foods, shoes and clothes from Italy. In 2014, the Mongolian export to Italy stood at US$51.4 million, whereas the import was $US 45.3 million. And Italy isn’t alone, according to Ulsbold Harper, Associate, Business Development at Asia Pacific Investment Partners that owns Mongolia’s largest real estate firm, Mongolian Properties.

“We believe these are the countries looking to open up embassies in Mongolia: Australia, United Arab Emirates and Poland,” said Harper. According to the Mongolian government's "Invest Mongolia" agency, the top foreign investors in the country between 1990 and 2013 were the Netherlands ($4.2bn), China ($3.75bn), Luxemburg ($1.15bn), British Virgin Islands ($1.10bn), Singapore ($0.72bn), Canada (0.49bn), South Korea ($0.38bn), USA ($0.31bn), Russia ($0.30bn) and Australia ($0.26bn). “Obviously Rio Tinto has invested huge amounts for the Oyu Tolgoi mine,” said Harper. “They have recently committed to spend $4.4bn between 2016 to 2022 to develop the second stage of the underground mine.” Mongolia's Financial Regulatory Committee has recently approved the launch of the new Mongolia's Securities Exchange ("MSX"). The company will operate the exchanges of primary and secondary securities. A dozen brokerage companies have joined the MSX, and many brokerage companies have also expressed their intention to participate and a number of companies have requested to launch IPO's.