On the first event organized by the Italian Mongolian Chamber of Commerce we established an award, the “Associm Award for Social, Economic and Cultural Relation between Italy and Mongolia” with the goal to reward the effort of those who have demonstrated a key role in the improvement of diplomatic, trade and cultural relations between our two countries.

The award has been delivered to Mr. Gombojav Zandanshatar, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Mongolia, who, since the beginning of his mandate in December 2009, has promoted several initiatives to intensify the relations of Mongolia with Europe and Italy. This has been also the purpose of Associm – Italian Mongolian Chamber of Commerce – since 2002, when we started our activities to encourage economic, cultural and trade relations between Italy and Mongolia. Mongolia’s potential needs to be well described.

Five times bigger than Italy, positioned between Russian and China and dominated by a wild nature: Mongolia is one of the fewest place in earth that still remains uncontaminated.

Mongolia is a country where tradition and modernity are constantly overlapping, and where Gengis Khan’s tradition is mixed with soviet architecture, and Buddhist temples stand side by side with nomad shepherd tents.

However, Mongolia is above all a country to be discovered, made by endless horizons dominated by lakes, by the wild expanses of Gobi desert or by the snow-covered peaks of Altai Nuur mountain.

Growth rate, which between 2004 and 2008 has reached an average 9%, is most of all the indicator that describes the extraordinary performance of Mongolian economy in the last years.

In 2007 GDP increased by 10%. Some commercial sectors have had a considerable increase, such as manufacturing (+32,3% in 2007), construction (+22,4%), compartment of the transport, logistics and communications (+18.6%) or agriculture (+15.8%).