Significance of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor for the Irkutsk Region and Mongolia

Abstract

The paper considers the issue of implementing the Silk Road Economic Belt and especially the China-Mongolia-Russia transport corridor and its influence on the development of the Irkutsk Region and Mongolia as intracontinental peripheries. According to customs statistics, the Irkutsk Region mostly exports aluminum to the well-developed countries of the West and mineral fuel, timber, and cellulose to the East (China, Japan, and South Korea), and after increasing the throughput of railways, it will strengthen its export-resource dependence subject to the current trends. Mongolia has the same problems because the Mongolian economy has limited diversification and is strongly dependent on the extracting industry. Routes of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic belt fit the objects of the promising project “New Angarstroy” that makes the Irkutsk Region a full-fledged member of this concept. The convergence of the commodity markets of Siberia and Mongolia resulted from the shortened economic distance makes it possible to develop efficient end-use production facilities up to the creation of cross-border Russian-Mongolian territorial production complexes. On the other hand, distances are not so critical circumstances for building an innovative economy. However, the main problems of regional development within the framework of the initiative lie in the institutional and political field, i.e. the mechanisms of financing suggested in the concept of the Silk Road Economic Belt are not efficiently used in the territories of Siberia and Mongolia.