By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington: China and India are the top two over-performers among developing economies in improving their capacity to efficiently move goods and connect manufacturers and consumers with international markets, according to a new World Bank Group survey.
India is also rated as the best performer from South Asia though overall it’s listed 47th among the 155 economies ranked in the Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI), included in the report “Connecting to Compete 2010: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy”.
Germany is rated as the top performer in the study based on what the Bank said was the most comprehensive world survey of international freight forwarders and express carriers.
The report, headed by World Bank Group economists Jean Francois Arvis and Monica Alina Mustra, notes that among developing economies logistics performance transcends the level of per capita income: Many countries perform better than what their income level would suggest.
The ten most significant over-performers include China (27), India (47), Uganda (66), Vietnam (53), Thailand (35), the Philippines (44), and South Africa (28).
Likewise, the countries with significant improvement in performance between the two surveys (the 2007 and 2010 LPI) are often those, which implemented comprehensive logistics and trade facilitation reforms earlier, such as Colombia, Brazil, and Tunisia, it said.
In terms of how developing countries are doing per region, India is the top performer from South Asia; China (27) from East Asia; South Africa from Africa; Poland (30) from Central and Eastern Europe; Brazil (41) from Latin America; and Lebanon (33) from the Middle East.
Noting the improving trade logistics around the world, the survey suggests that much more progress is needed to spur faster economic growth and help firms benefit from trade recovery.
“Economic competitiveness is relentlessly driving countries to strengthen performance, and improving trade logistics is a smart way to deliver more efficiencies, lower costs and added economic growth,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.
Although the study shows a substantial “logistics gap” between rich countries and most developing countries, it finds positive trends in some areas essential to logistics performance and trade. Some of them include the modernisation of customs, use of information technology, and development of private logistics services.
According to the study, logistics performance is heavily influenced by the quality of public sector institutions and the effective coordination of border clearance processes among all border management agencies.
The World Bank Group has a number of projects designed to improve trade logistics in developing countries, the report said.
The Bank is also working with IBM, Microsoft and the Global Express Association as part of a public-private partnership on “Aid for Trade Facilitation”. The objective is to develop pilot projects in developing countries that apply innovative IT solutions to streamline border procedures.