DHL Global Forwarding has launched road and multimodal freight services linking Mongolia to Europe and the US.

The new road connection to continental Europe has a transit time of less than 20 days and passes through Russia and Belarus. It supports different business sizes by offering both full truck load and less-than-truck load options.

“Mongolia’s economy is rebounding from the mining downturn, further building on its status as the world’s second-largest cashmere producer and a food and agricultural export hub,” said Kelvin Leung, CEO of DHL Global Forwarding Asia Pacific. “With Mongolian businesses gaining a growing slice of global market share, supported by an increasingly solid network of regional free trade agreements, Mongolia’s dominant trading partners also stand to gain from increases in domestic consumption of foreign goods.”

The new service is aimed at the movement of goods such as furniture, medicines wine into Mongolia, and exports such as mining spare parts, cashmere products and all-terrain bikes.

The new multimodal connection with the US offers full container load and less-than-container load options. With a transit time of as few as 18 days, it passes from the US by air to South Korea, by ocean to China and then by rail and road to Mongolia.

“The new road freight and multimodal services provide both small businesses and large enterprises with an especially cost-effective and timely way of testing demand and establishing consistent trade between both markets,” said Charles Kaufmann, CEO of North Asia and head of value-added services at DHL Global Forwarding Asia Pacific. “As the only international logistics provider with a local presence in Mongolia, DHL enables overseas exporters to gain a head-start in accessing the ‘Wolf Economy’ as it continues its path to the front of the pack.”

Goods expected to be transported into Mongolia include watches, coffee machines and motorcycles, while exports include aviation spare parts, camel wool and rally cars, according to DHL.