Mongolia

In response to a request from the National Statistics Office of Mongolia (NSOM), a technical assistance mission visited Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia during April 17–28, 2017, to provide assistance with updating and improving the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Industrial Producer Price Index (IPPI). The mission also provided advice on the Restaurant Index and Export Import Unit Value Indexes (XMUVI), and reviewed the index compilation system used by the NSOM. The mission found the CPI’s expenditure weights were likely to overstate the significance of automobiles and motorcycles as they include secondhand purchases from other households. The next Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) must identify these purchases so that the weights reflect net household expenditure by excluding transactions between households. The mission also recommends an adjustment to the expenditure shares in the updated CPI based on alternative data sources and improvements to the compilation procedure used to estimate the monthly price change for automobiles and motorcycles.