Time Release Study: Mongolia Business Plus Initiative Project (BPI)

The study covered Customs Clearance and Technical Control in the context of the International Finance Corporation (IFC)-World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking. This study aimed to assess the efficiency of customs clearance and technical control processes in Mongolia, with a focus on identifying areas for improvement. The TRS methodology was consistent with international standards for studies of this type, ensuring that the estimates of elapsed time for Customs Clearance and Technical Control are highly credible and provide a sound baseline for comparison with future TRS's. The study covered three locations: Ulaanbaatar, Zamyn Uud, and Altanbulag, with a total of 983 shipments analyzed. The results of the TRS indicate that Mongolia can report an elapsed time for imports of less than 24 hours in the next Ease of Doing Business report. The weighted average elapsed time for Customs Clearance and Technical Control for imports is shown in the following chart: 00 -- 11:56 for the 25th percentile, 00 -- 23:42 for the 50th percentile, and 01 -- 20:09 for the 75th percentile. This is a good result, especially considering that customs terminals are closed for about 12 hours a day. However, there are opportunities for improvement, particularly in reducing waiting time and improving performance further. For example, implementing advance clearance of shipments could help reduce waiting time. Additionally, non-Customs and Technical Control times, such as Inland Transportation and Handling, which currently takes 13 days, are an area of focus for improvement. Reducing Inland Transportation and Handling by just one day would be easier than reducing Customs Clearance and Technical Control by the same amount. The TRS databases contain a wealth of information that can be used to support new performance improvement efforts. There are about 20 combinations of location and process, and the TRS database for each process in each covered location is a good starting point for further analysis. Improvements can be identified location by location and process by process, and comparisons between locations can identify best practices. The TRS was largely a data collection and validation matter, and much additional analysis could be done to fully exploit the TRS databases. The TRS results also indicate that the 50th percentile elapsed time for export clearance was less than 24 hours, based on data from 14 exports in two locations. This suggests that export clearance processes are relatively efficient, but further analysis is needed to confirm this finding. The Business Plus Initiative Project has three chapters in addition to this Executive Summary. The next chapter discusses a number of observations and policy recommendations that derive from the TRS, while the following chapter summarizes the methodology used by the TRS. The final chapter shows a number of high-level results, including elapsed times for different processes.