Source: The Financial Times blog                             Date: 24 February, 2011

Mongolian equities were the world’s best performing last year, gaining an eye-watering 140 percent in dollar terms. It is, it seems, the place to buy into China’s booming demand for commodities – mainly coal – and has investment bankers literally slugging it out for a piece of the business.

If 2010 was the year when equities on the exchange in Ulaanbaatar skyrocketed, then 2011 looks like the year they went into orbit. The MSE TOP 20 has been up 370 percent since the start of 2010. This year it’s already up over 100 per cent again, and almost 300 per cent in local currency. You have to wonder whether, with Mongolia’s citizens entitled to shares of any state-owned assets listed on the exchange, the country’s 2.7m people may one day enjoy GDP per capita akin to Abu Dhabi or Qatar.