On May 27, Capital Markets Mongolia hosted the inaugural Mongolia Investment Forum: Shanghai 2026 at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai. More than 300 delegates from over 200 companies and organisations attended — institutional investors, policymakers, and industry leaders convened to discuss long-term capital deployment across Mongolia's priority sectors.
The forum was the fourth in a global series. The previous three editions were held in New York, London, and Singapore. Shanghai is a different kind of signal: Mongolia's largest trading partner is China, which accounts for roughly 90% of Mongolia's commodity exports. Choosing Shanghai — rather than a Western financial centre — as the venue for the fourth forum reflects where the capital conversation is actually moving.
Rio Tinto and Huawei were both in the room as sponsors. That combination does not happen at every investment forum.
The Mongolian delegation was led by two members of parliament and a State Secretary from the Ministry of Economy and Development. More than 35 Mongolian companies and institutions were represented, including the Development Bank of Mongolia, Khan Bank, Trade and Development Bank, and Golomt Bank. Participants spanned China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Australia.
The sectors on the table: mining and critical minerals, renewable energy, banking and debt financing, and logistics. All four connect directly to Mongolia's relationship with China — as the primary buyer of Mongolian coal, a major infrastructure investor, and an increasingly active presence in the country's financial sector through entities like Huawei and Envision Energy.
CAW CONTEXT
The Shanghai forum is one data point in a pattern. Mongolia has been running a deliberate multi-venue investor relations campaign since 2024 — New York for US capital, London for European institutional money, Singapore for Asian sovereign funds, now Shanghai for Chinese industrial and state capital. The next edition is London in September 2026, followed by Singapore in November. Reading the sequence: Mongolia is not choosing between East and West. It is pricing itself in both markets simultaneously. The tension that creates — particularly given the Oyu Tolgoi dispute with Rio Tinto, the coal dependency on China, and the new cross-border railway under construction — is where the real story sits.