The urbanization process intensified from the 1960s in Mongolia and today, 57 per cent of the population or 1.345.000 citizens, live in Ulaanbaatar and 43 per cent live in rural areas. 49.1 per cent of the population lives in 265.500 apartments, covering 6878 thousand square meters. 50.5 per cent of population lives in ger districts. The square per capita living in apartment is 6.7 quadrate meters in Ulaanbaatar and 56 quadrate meters in rural areas, which are lower than the international standard by twice. 81.6 per cent of households with apartments live in private houses and 16.6 per cent live in state-owned apartments. 67.3 per cent of the total Mongolian households, comprising 94.5 per cent of Ulaanbaatar households and 34.3 per cent of rural households, have been linked to the energy source, 44.4 per cent of total households live in an apartment with centralized heating.
54.8 per cent of Ulaanbaatar citizens live in apartments with centralized heating, while 2.5 per cent of rural citizens live in apartments with centralized heating. 39.8 per cent of the total households live in apartments with cold and hot water. As of the population and housing census in 2000, about 18.000 households live in apartments sharing with others as they have no apartments. Every year about 10.000 couples got married, which increases the number of households without apartments. Therefore, it is a necessary to build apartments covering over 800.000 square meters in order to provide for households without apartments. It requires investment worth 150-220 billion tugrigs. In 2003, the 2000 apartments was commissioned and number of the commissioned apartments was increased by almost 7 times compared with the previous year. In the same year, number of pumps and transport means for distribution of the water supply were increased by 85 and 17.003, and reached 883 and 232.037 respectively.
The Asian Development Bank- funded Loan Project for housing, now being implemented, supports the building of stable housing structures in Mongolia. The project is implemented by Golomt Bank and it has been authorized to issue loans worth 31 million tugrugs in the first stage of the project. The Citizens' Representatives Meeting of Ulaanbaatar launched 2003 as the "Year of Investment and Construction". Construction worth 94 billion togrogs will be carried out throughout the city during the year with a focus on building apartments. The Kyokushuzan a development foundation built 1000 apartments and Tsast Impex company is building the "New Morning" apartment complex. In additional, 1400 flats will be built in the Moscow district. A model residential district in the Rail Road area is built by the joint Mongolian-Chinese Bogda Holding company. Three apartment blocks to house 1,088 families will be finished soon in the area. At present 83,650 state owned apartments and 500 apartments owned by some organisations were privatised free of charge. Also there was decided to privatise over 8,500 apartments owned by the Ulaanbaatar railway.
