Prospects of China-Mongolia-Russia trade in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic

Relevance. China, Mongolia, and Russia are among each other’s major trade partners. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on global trade, which creates the need to analyze further prospects of the trilateral cooperation between China, Mongolia and Russia. Research objective. This study aims to analyze China-Mongolia-Russia trade cooperation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data and methods. This article applies a comparative analysis method to examine the development and changes in import and export trade between China, Mongolia, and Russia before and after the beginning of the project of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, from 2014 to 2020. The research relies on the data from the China Trade and Foreign Economy Statistical Yearbook, Northeast Asia Economic Statistics of Sea of Japan Economic Research Institute, Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, Russian Customs, and National Bureau of Statistics of Mongolia. Results. Along with the realization of the medium and short-term goal of raising the volume of trade turnover within the Corridor, the three countries seek to play more and more important roles as each other’s trade partners. It is observed that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the volume of trade has not been significant, and thus the fundamental premises of trilateral trade cooperation have remained largely unchanged. Conclusions. To increase the volume of trade between China, Mongolia and Russia, it is necessary to improve the trade structure, reduce tariffs, establish free trade areas and actively promote the diversification of trade cooperation.