The Strengthening Fiscal and Financial Stability Project for Mongolia, a joint project of the Ministry of Finance of Mongolia and the World Bank, is to contribute to the government of Mongolia’s efforts to strengthen fiscal and financial stability and improve the quality of expenditure management.

One of the major sub-goals of this project stands for IMPROVING MACROECONOMIC POLICY TOOLS AND ENHANCING RESEARCH CAPACITY. As one of those beneficiary institutions, the Economic Policy Department (the Ministry of Finance, Mongolia) has successfully introduced automation into the macroeconomic analysis (economic trend analysis, long-term macroeconomic projections, analysis of alternative trends, etc.). and displaying information for reaching such goal. The major benefits of automation include: 1) Makes easier and less time-consuming for macroeconomic analysis, and 2) Creates less room for human error. The characteristics of automation at our beneficiary:

1. Reduces the costs spent on software development by utilizing the existing solutions such as the “ХУР” state information system and the ministry’s external systems; 
2. Serve real-time applications that process data as it comes in, typically without buffer delays;
3. Open to further development options;

Let us proceed to the details as follows: 

One. Real time-based data collection application software 

The Real time-based data collection application software enables the beneficiary to, directly and indirectly, collect data from a variety of statistical sources. This software, for example, indirectly retrieves data from those databases of the National Customs Office, the Mongolian Taxation Administration, and the Social Insurance General Office via the “ХУР” state information system, while the statistical data is directly collected from the National Statistical Database (www.1212.mn) by the National Statistics Office of Mongolia. It would take at least 3 business days to obtain and use the required data, but the software reduces such time to 3-5 minutes in particular.  

The software was built responsive to desktop and website. Moreover, the software runs on the ministry’s internal systems to protect information or data from unauthorized access, use, misuse, disclosure, destruction, modification, or disruption. 

With the introduction of this application software, pre-data processing at which raw data is collected, cleaned up and organized in becomes less time-consuming manner so as the policymakers and the decision-makers receive timely and more accurate macroeconomic information immediately.  Also, this application software not only enables the ministry to collect data from other organizations, but rather has led to another big step towards more flexible, faster, safer, and more reliable way of exchanging information among the public institutions.

Two. The national development policy index database system 

This system assists the beneficiary in effectively and efficiently managing the nation’s development policy documents (such as the Mongolia Sustainable Development Vision 2030, the Government Action Plan, the Socio-Economic Guidelines, etc.) in more linked or coordinated manner for its day-to-day activities. For example, if the ministry staff seeks to highlight the link chain for set of the development policy documents including Mongolia's Long-Term Development Policy Vision 2050, the Five-Year Economic Guideline of Mongolia for 2021-2015, and the Government Action Plan 2020-2014; the system features budgets based on assignment work and calculates their alignment rates in up-to 5 minutes. 

The national development policy index database system has the components as follows: 

1. Software that allows the hardware to process the data for collecting, processing, and reporting;
2. Database that gathers associated files or tables containing related data;
3. The ministry’s internal system-based network that connects system in which diverse computers distribute resources;

As it utilizes the ministry’s internal systems, distinct hardware devices like the monitor, processor, and printer are not required to make up the information technology platform, so as to save the system costs. Another advantage of this system comes with a visualization that interprets information on graphs.

Three. Power Apps mobile application for real-time macroeconomic information

With the help of the project, the beneficiary is also developing a Power Apps mobile application for real-time macroeconomic information with the intention of delivering updated macroeconomic data to the policymakers and the decision-makers on a tick-by-tick basis. This Power Apps mobile application enables the ministry staff to access the latest information of key macroeconomic indicators, the budget performance, the commodity market news, and the major global market indices.