Countries like India, China and the US, which pursued aggressive reforms, have improved their global trade logistics performance despite the slowdown in progress in the sector over the last two years amid the global recession, the World Bank has said.
India now ranks 46th in global trade logistics performance, whose top five slot are occupied by Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, Germany and Netherlands in the list of 155 countries.
The United States is ranked ninth, while Japan occupies the eight spot.
Countries like Chile, China, India, Morocco, South Africa, Turkey and the US all improved their previous performance, the World Bank said, citing a study based on a comprehensive global survey of international freight forwarders and express carriers, as it released the "Connecting to Compete 2012: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy" report.
"Trade logistics is key to economic competitiveness, growth and poverty reduction," Otaviano Canuto, World Bank vice president for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM), said.
"Unfortunately, the logistics gap between rich and poor countries continues and the convergence trend experienced between 2007 and 2010 has stalled as events like the global recession, and the European debt crisis shifted attention away from logistics reform," he said.
According to the LPI, high-income economies dominate the top logistics rankings, while the economies with the worst performance are least developed countries that are also often landlocked, small islands or post-conflict states.
Nevertheless,
In the upper-middle income country category, top performers include South Africa, China and Turkey. In the lower middle income category, India, Morocco and the Philippines have above average performance improvements.
And among low-income countries, outperformers included Benin, Malawi and Madagascar, the Bank reported.
"Infrastructure stands out as the chief driver of progress in top performers, followed by improvements in logistics services and customs and border management," said Mona Haddad, Sector Manager of the World Bank's International Trade Department.
"All top performers show strong cooperation between the public and private sectors, and a comprehensive approach in the development of services, infrastructure and efficient logistics," Haddad added.
At a time where food prices are at historic highs, the survey also found that logistics is important for food security.
Transport and logistics directly affect the price and local availability of food through the performance and resilience of food chains, especially in African and Middle Eastern countries that depend heavily on food imports.
The survey, which for the first time included environmental indicators, also found that green logistics is quickly gaining prominence in high-income and emerging economies -- a positive development since logistics and freight-related activities may account for up to 15 per cent of human carbon dioxide emissions.
