World Bank Group: Austria looses attractiveness as logistics location
New World Bank Group report on the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) puts 160 countries on a benchmark test with Germany rated top
The gap between the countries that perform best and worst in trade logistics is still quite large, despite a slow convergence since 2007, according to a new World Bank Group report. This gap persists because of the complexity of logistics-related reforms and investment in developing countries.
The report, Connecting to Compete 2014: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy, ranks 160 countries on a number of dimensions of trade – including customs performance, infrastructure quality, and timeliness of shipments. The data comes from a survey of more than 1,000 logistics professionals. The World Bank Group’s International Trade Unit has produced the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) about every two years since 2007.
“The LPI is trying to capture a rather complex reality: attributes of the supply chain,” said Jean-François Arvis, Senior Transport Economist and the founder of the LPI project. “In countries with high logistics costs, it is often not the distance between trading partners, but reliability of the supply chain that is the most important contributor to those costs.”
In the 2014 LPI report, Germany showed the world’s best overall logistics performance, followed by the Netherlands and Belgium. Austria dropped eleven ranks to 22nd. Somalia had the lowest score. As with previous editions, the 2014 report finds that high-income countries dominate the world’s top-ten logistics performers. Among low-income countries, Malawi, Kenya, and Rwanda showed the highest performance.
The 2014 report finds that low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries will need to take different strategies to improve their standings in logistics performance. In low-income countries, the biggest gains typically come from improvements to infrastructure and basic border management. This might mean reforming a customs agency, but, increasingly, it means improving efficiency in other agencies present at the border, including those responsible for sanitary and phyto-sanitary controls. Often, multiple approaches are required.
“You can’t just create infrastructure without addressing border management issues,” said Jean-François Arvis. “It’s difficult to get everything right. The projects are more complicated, with many stakeholders, and have more parties concerned.”
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Quelle: LogEastics
Portal: www.logistik-express.com
