A huge jump in logistics performance

Bangladesh's logistics performance has improved significantly in the last two years, according to a World Bank report released on Tuesday.

In WB's biennial Logistics Performance Index (LPI), Bangladesh jumped 21 places to 87 in 2016 from 108 two years earlier.

India moved up 19 places to 35, while Pakistan ranks 68. All other South Asian nations lag behind Bangladesh. Nepal's ranking fell to 124 this year from 105 in 2014. Germany retained the top spot in the report titled Connecting to Compete: 2016 Trade Logistics in the Global Economy, while Syria ranked the lowest.

Improving performance in logistics will not only boost domestic investment, but it can also help increase international trade.

The LPI analyses 160 countries across six components: efficiency of the clearance process by border control agencies, quality of trade and transport-related infrastructure, ease of arranging competitively priced shipments, quality of logistics services, ability to track consignments and timeliness of shipments.

The scorecards demonstrate comparative performance on the criteria on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest.

Bangladesh's overall score stands at 2.66 this year, up from 2.56 in 2014. Of the six indicators, Bangladesh has scored better in customs, infrastructure, logistics competence and tracking this year compared to that of 2014.

On the other hand, Bangladesh's score went down slightly this year in areas of international shipments and timeliness.

The report said countries characterised by low logistics performance face high costs, not merely because of transportation costs but also because of unreliable supply chains -- a major handicap in integrating and competing in global value chains.

The WB has another measure -- a domestic LPI, which analyses a country's performance across four factors: infrastructure, services, border procedures and supply chain reliability.

The yardsticks are not comparable across all countries, but there are some that show Bangladesh still lags behind many countries.

For example, only 65 percent of shipments from Bangladesh meet the quality criteria, compared to 69 percent for India, 72 percent for China and 77 percent for Kenya.

On the other hand, it takes two and three days to clear shipments, without and with inspection, respectively. The numbers are comparable to India and China.

Bangladesh has an average of 5 and 4 forms required for imports and exports, which are on par with India and China as well, but higher than Germany, which requires just 2 forms.

The lead time for exports through sea or air ports is 4 days, which goes up to 7 days for land ports; for imports, it is 5 days and 7 days respectively. Nearly 86 percent of declarations are submitted and processed electronically in Bangladesh.