[shaowmaster]

Speaking Mongolian is an advantage in this country.... I was never ripped of or overpriced. Even if the Altai Hotel in Altai has a foreigners price list I could obtain the local'S price of 12.000 Tugrik a night instead 18.000 for foreigners. Maybe it depends also on personal behaviour or your ethnics. After having hiked for more than 4 weeks through entire Mongolia the worst thing that happened to me was a silly girl vomiting on the passengers clothes on a bus ride from Bayanhongor to UB. Sometimes you must have luck: sitting in a bus, I was asked by chance about business....

some hours later I got the business cards from a Mobicom Manager and a XAAC bank manager. You definitely need to know such people, otherwise you meet the wrong ones.

AFter some days I made friends with an official from the commerce chamber, and I have met my girlfriend. All of this was by chance :-)

To start business it's good to have the right nationality - Germany and Mongolia have a bilateral agreement for trade and commerce, but with the USA they don't have it.

During the russian occupation (which ended in 1990) about 70% of the engeneers and scientists were educated in Russia, the other 30% in the former socialist East Germany (the GDR). So the actual gouverments keep close relations....

Anyway, it takes lot of time to deal with incompetent officials, and furthermore I on my own have no Idea nor the money.

100.000$ is more than a life income of a qualified worker in Mongolia, so lot of people try to rip you off. A mongolian friend told me: not to talk about (having) money in public (in Mongolia), that attracts automatically some evil people trying some tricks on you.

Back to the business school - this is capitalism at it's best. Not a good place for a long-term stay. A basic rule for pure capitalism is to increase the income, and to decrease the expenses. Even by not-upgrading a computer with some memory.