Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. In the first two months of 2020, Mongolia traded with 114 countries from all over the world, and the total trade turnover reached USD 1.5 billion, of which USD 770.7 million were exports and USD 750.0 million were imports. 

Total foreign trade turnover decreased by USD 410.4 million (21.3%), of which exports decreased by USD 322.9 million (29.5%) and imports -- by USD 87.5 million (10.4%) compared to the same period of the previous year. 

The surplus of foreign trade balance reached USD 256.1 million in the first two months of 2019, while the surplus of the balance reached USD 20.7 million in the first two months of 2020 and decreased by USD 235.4 million from the same period of 2019. 

Our two neighbors, China and Russia, have the highest shares in total foreign trade turnover and trade with China reached USD 849.7 million in the first two months of 2020, so, which is 55.9% of total trade turnover. Exports to China account for 84.7% of total exports. 

Coal and copper concentrate accounted for 33.4% and 33.6% of total exports to China, while gold accounted for 84.3% of goods exported to the United Kingdom, fluorspar accounted for 88.9% of total export goods to the Russian Federation, and coal accounted for 56.0% of products exported to Singapore. 

Compared to the same period of the previous year, the total export was decreased by USD 322.9 million, which was mainly influenced by decreases of USD 115.6 million in gold and USD 90.0 million in copper concentrates and USD 104.8 million in coal exports. 

In the first two months of 2020, by shares of imports, 37.6% of the total was from Russia, 26.3% -- China, 7.5% -- Japan, 4.2% -- Germany, and 3.7% -- the USA, accounting for 79.4% of the total import. 58.5% of the total imports from Russia were petroleum products, 68.1% of the total imports from Japan were cars, 10.4% of the total imports from China were electricity, 4.5% were trucks, and the remaining percentage was imports of other products from China. The USD 87.5 million decrease in imports from the same period of the previous year was mainly due to USD 27.5 million decrease in car imports and USD 9.7 million decrease in truck import. 

Exports of mineral products, textiles and textile articles, natural or cultured stones, precious metals jewelry made up 95.9 percent of the total export. On the other hand, 72.6 percent of imports was mineral products, machinery, equipment, electric appliances, transport vehicle, and its spare parts, food products.