Central Asia is often associated with the silk route or road, the longest overland trade route connecting China to Europe and one of the oldest in history.
... انظر المزيد + Growth opportunities and the future prosperity of the region are highly dependent upon the efficiency of its internal and external supply-chain connections, which is the focus of this report. Supply-chain connectivity depends on the quality of the infrastructure on specific routes. This study explains how supply chain fragmentation remains a serious obstacle to economic development of Central Asia and to Eurasian integration more generally. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the various factors that yet impede supply-chain integration, including weak transport and communications infrastructure, but as important, and perhaps more so, critical weaknesses in policy, institutions, and governance. Based on this assessment this report provides an insightful set of recommendations that, if taken up by the governments of Central Asia and by their key neighbors, will go a long way in promoting the effective integration of Central Asia into an increasingly connected Eurasian continental economy and with that into the global economy.
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A trade and transport corridor is a coordinated bundle of transport and logistics infrastructure and services that facilitates trade and transport flows between major centers of economic activity.
... انظر المزيد + Providing a comprehensive guide to tools and techniques for corridor projects is important, as the volume of such projects is likely to increase. Corridors remain very important, especially to landlocked countries and post-conflict countries and regions. This toolkit provides a comprehensive and holistic compilation of approaches and techniques on corridor diagnostics, performance assessment, management, operations improvement, and impact evaluation. The toolkit identifies mechanisms for improving the performance of the corridor through initiatives by the public and private sectors. These initiatives include investments in infrastructure and modification of policies and regulations, especially related to trade facilitation. It also considers the government's capacity to maintain the infrastructure and regulate the flow of goods along the corridor and the private sector's ability to provide a variety of levels and quality of services, as measured in terms of time and cost. It provides tools to answer four main questions: what are the approaches to identifying the main issues and constraints to movement of trade and transport along a corridor?; how well is the corridor performing, and where are the weaknesses?; what are the options for improving the performance of the corridor?; and what are the likely impacts of investments or improvements to the corridor? The toolkit groups the four main questions into three parts, which comprise 13 modules. Part one includes four modules on how to carry out a corridor diagnostic. These modules focus on the infrastructure, regulatory, and institutional framework for a corridor. It also includes a critical module on corridor performance indicators. Part two comprises eight modules on specific corridor components. It explains how performance can be improved through targeted interventions. Part three consists of a single module, on assessing the impact of a corridor.
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The Greater Cairo Metropolitan Area (GCMA), with more than 19 million inhabitants, is host to more than one-fifth of Egypt's population. The GCMA is also an important contributor to the Egyptian economy in terms of GDP and jobs.
... انظر المزيد + The population of the GCMA is expected to further increase to 24 million by 2027, and correspondingly its importance to the economy will also increase. Traffic congestion is a serious problem in the GCMA with large and adverse effects on both the quality of life and the economy. In addition to the time wasted standing still in traffic, time that could be put to more productive uses, congestion results in unnecessary fuel consumption, causes additional wear and tear on vehicles, increases harmful emissions lowering air quality, increases the costs of transport for business, and makes the GCMA an unattractive location for businesses and industry. These adverse effects have very real and large monetary and nonmonetary costs not only for the economy of the GCMA, but given its size, for the economy of Egypt as well. As the population of the GCMA continues to increase, traffic congestion is becoming worse and the need to address this congestion is becoming more urgent. In recognition of the seriousness of the problem of traffic congestion, and upon the request of Government, primarily the Ministries of Finance, Transport, Housing, and Interior, the World Bank funded an investigation into its magnitude, causes, and potential solutions in the GCMA. This report documents the results of the study. The results of this study should be of interest to policy-makers and practitioners in the GCMA, the Egyptian Government, other cities facing similar problems, and international financial institutions.
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In Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), the value of trade has risen rapidly over the last decade with both imports and exports increasing by average annual rate of 24 percent.
... انظر المزيد + This report examines the trade logistics of Lao PDR. A trade and transport facilitation assessment was performed using a standardized toolkit and methodology developed by the World Bank to evaluate the quality of the logistics services. The assessment focused on the services used by these trades and the corridors used by these services. The assessment gave specific attention to two constraints on trade, the location of the country and the size of the trade. The study is organized in three interrelated parts: assessing the performance of the logistics sector; the international trade corridors linking Lao PDR to trade gateways in Thailand; and the supply chains used for distribution of exports. This report is presented in four sections. The first part examines the foreign trade of Lao PDR, the opportunities for growth and the logistics services in the movement of imports and exports between the country and its major gateways. The second section evaluates the performance of the corridors connecting the major origins and destinations in the country and the principal seaport used for international trade. The third section analyses the structure and performance characteristics of the supply chains used for selected trades and the implications for restructuring to support growth in the export trade. The final section presents a series of recommendations for improving the competitiveness of the exports through improvements in the structure of the supply chains, the logistics services used by these supply chains, and the corridors used by these supply chains.
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دراسة أخرى بشأن المناطق الحضرية 72061 APR 01, 2014
This report presents a summary of the projected global economic growth for 2014. Global growth is projected to accelerate at a greater rate in 2014 than the previous year.
... انظر المزيد + Much of the initial acceleration reflects a pick-up in high-income country growth, which after years of extreme weakness and outright recessions, appear to be finally emerging from the global financial crisis. Although developing country growth in 2013 was relatively weak, it has been improving, partly reflecting strengthening growth in high-income countries, but also a recovery from earlier weakness in large middle-income countries, such as India and China. However, prospects will be sensitive to market reactions to quantitative easing withdrawal. On a positive note, strengthening trade is expected to be a bolstering factor.
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The demand for accountability in aid-for-trade is increasing but monitoring has focused on case studies and impressionistic narratives. The paper reviews recent evidence from a wide range of studies, recognizing that a multiplicity of approaches is needed to learn what works and what does not.
... انظر المزيد + The review concludes that there is some support for the emphasis on reducing trade costs through investments in hard infrastructure (like ports and roads) and soft infrastructure (like customs). But failure to implement complementary reform -- especially the introduction of competition in transport services -- may erode the benefits of these investments. Direct support to exporters does seem to lead to diversification across products and destinations, but it is not yet clear that these benefits are durable. In general, it is difficult to rely on cross-country studies to direct aid-for-trade. More rigorous impact evaluation is an underutilized alternative, but situations of clinical interventions in trade are rare and adverse incentives (because of agency problems) and costs (because of the small size of project) are a hurdle in implementation.
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The Northern Corridor, connecting East Africa to the World through the port of Mombasa, is one of the oldest corridor authorities in Africa, as it was established in 1985.
... انظر المزيد + Throughout its years of existence, it has been a source of ideas and knowledge that contributed to the thinking on trade facilitation. To a large extent, it is the birthplace of the concept of corridor transport observatory, and through successive models and revisions, it helped shape what transport observatories are. Transport Observatories emerged as the result of the efforts made over the years to address the specific challenges faced by landlocked developing countries. Most of these countries rely heavily on overseas markets as outlets for their productions and as source for their imports, but for that, they must transit through a coastal country. They are at a disadvantage when it comes to competing on equal terms with other economies for integrating into the world market. The handicaps attached to that remoteness are well known and many: a longer time to import or export, a time rarely predictable, higher costs, with sometimes a double toll when input into production must also be imported. Moreover, little can be done by the landlocked countries alone to improve the conditions of crossing transit countries. Indeed, transit trade flows may even be considered as a nuisance or even a threat when similar economies are competing for similar markets.
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This note explores issues within the urban logistics and port-cities thematic pillar. It is one of three focus areas, or thematic pillars, for the multi-donor trust fund for sustainable logistics (MDTF-SL).
... انظر المزيد + The goal of this pillar is to finance activities that will assist developing countries in two areas; addressing urban congestion resulting from retail distribution of goods, and improving the sustainable design and operation of port-cities. Activities under this pillar will concentrate on reducing congestion and pollution by focusing on the efficient distribution of goods in urban environments. Additional emphasis will be placed on the urban planning tools and investments required for port-cites to address sustainability issues endemic to densely populated economies serving as either a local or regional transport hubs.
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Vietnam has achieved sustained economic growth, primarily driven by a rapidly expanding labor force and a shift in economic activity away from low-productivity subsistence agriculture toward the higher-productivity manufacturing and services sectors.
... انظر المزيد + However, the country's socioeconomic success is now facing both short- and long-term challenges. Over the longer term, Vietnam is faced with the challenge that its main drivers of past growth are being depleted and need to be replaced by intra-sectoral productivity improvements. More efficient transport and logistics can play a significant role in increasing productivity. Competitiveness enhancements can better position Vietnam to benefit from global demand, to better serve domestic markets, to attract investment, and to generate quality jobs. This publication highlights opportunities to make freight itineraries more reliable, to make roads safer and more conducive to high-volume commercial use, to increase port sector efficiencies, and to better integrate barges, trucks, warehouses, and gateways. It also proposes interventions and policies that can address both short-term and long-term challenges. This work is divided into four detailed chapters: 1) overview, 2) Vietnam's current situation, 3) freight stakeholder challenges and opportunities, and 4) issues screening and list of actionable recommendations.
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In Vietnam, sustained high rates of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) averaging 7.2 percent per year over the past 20 years have resulted in higher demand for freight transport.
... انظر المزيد + As Vietnam looks to continue on a path of sustained economic growth, it faces the challenge of better aligning demand and supply of logistics services and improving the overall efficiency of its freight transport system. Given the existence of capacity constraints in the country's road network and the increasingly costly environmental impact of road use for freight movements, it is desirable for Vietnam to develop and maintain viable, competitive alternatives to road freight transport. A more intense use of waterborne freight transport can be a particularly effective way of both promoting growth and reducing emissions. The report has three objectives. The first is to identify targeted policy and infrastructure interventions in inland waterway transport (IWT) and coastal shipping that can enhance the competitiveness and environmental sustainability characteristics of Vietnam's freight transport system. The second objective of the report is to estimate the economic benefits and costs associated with the interventions identified, and to use that information to produce a prioritized list of evaluated recommendations for implementation. Finally, the report seeks to inform interested stakeholders, including public sector authorities, the shipper and carrier community, donors, academia, and the general public about the current status, composition, and key challenges and opportunities facing Vietnam's domestic waterborne transport sector. The report's scope comprises the three most important sources of freight activity in Vietnam, namely, road, IWT, and coastal shipping transportation. This report is structured as follows: chapter one gives introduction; chapter two gives stock taking of current developments and expected trends in IWT and coastal shipping from the perspective of market demand; and market supply is discussed in chapter three. Chapter four assesses, on an indicative basis, the environmental implications of transport trends. Chapter five defines and assesses the main bottlenecks impacting the development of inland and coastal waterborne transport. A preliminary strategy for developing IWT and coastal shipping is presented in chapter six. A set of specific IWT and coastal shipping interventions informed by the latter analysis, are developed and evaluated in chapter seven.
رؤية أقل ـ
In Vietnam, sustained high rates of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) averaging 7.2 percent per year over the past 20 years have resulted in higher demand for freight transport.
... انظر المزيد + As Vietnam looks to continue on a path of sustained economic growth, it faces the challenge of better aligning demand and supply of logistics services and improving the overall efficiency of its freight transport system. Given the existence of capacity constraints in the country's road network and the increasingly costly environmental impact of road use for freight movements, it is desirable for Vietnam to develop and maintain viable, competitive alternatives to road freight transport. A more intense use of waterborne freight transport can be a particularly effective way of both promoting growth and reducing emissions. The report has three objectives. The first is to identify targeted policy and infrastructure interventions in inland waterway transport (IWT) and coastal shipping that can enhance the competitiveness and environmental sustainability characteristics of Vietnam's freight transport system. The second objective of the report is to estimate the economic benefits and costs associated with the interventions identified, and to use that information to produce a prioritized list of evaluated recommendations for implementation. Finally, the report seeks to inform interested stakeholders, including public sector authorities, the shipper and carrier community, donors, academia, and the general public about the current status, composition, and key challenges and opportunities facing Vietnam's domestic waterborne transport sector. The report's scope comprises the three most important sources of freight activity in Vietnam, namely, road, IWT, and coastal shipping transportation. This report is structured as follows: chapter one gives introduction; chapter two gives stock taking of current developments and expected trends in IWT and coastal shipping from the perspective of market demand; and market supply is discussed in chapter three. Chapter four assesses, on an indicative basis, the environmental implications of transport trends. Chapter five defines and assesses the main bottlenecks impacting the development of inland and coastal waterborne transport. A preliminary strategy for developing IWT and coastal shipping is presented in chapter six. A set of specific IWT and coastal shipping interventions informed by the latter analysis, are developed and evaluated in chapter seven.
رؤية أقل ـ
It is argued that compared with large countries, small countries rely more on trade and therefore they are more likely to adopt liberal trading policies.
... انظر المزيد + The present paper extends this idea beyond the conventional trade openness measures by analyzing the relationship between country size and the number of documents required to export and import, a measure of trade facilitation. Three important results follow. First, trade facilitation does improve as country size becomes smaller; that is, small countries perform better than large countries in terms of trade facilitation. Second, the relationship between country size and trade facilitation is nonlinear, much stronger for the relatively small than the large countries. Third, contrary to what existing studies might suggest, the relationship between country size and trade facilitation does not appear to be driven by the fact that small countries trade more as a proportion of their gross domestic product than the large countries.
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This paper presents a technical efficiency analysis of container ports in Latin America and the Caribbean using an input-oriented stochastic frontier model.
... انظر المزيد + A 10-year panel is employed with data on container throughput, port terminal area, length of berths, and number of cranes available in 67 ports. The model has three innovations with respect to the available literature: (i) it treats ship-to-shore gantry cranes and mobile cranes separately, in order to account for the higher productivity of the former; (ii) a binary variable is introduced for ports using ships' cranes, treated as an additional source of port productivity; and (iii) a binary variable is used for ports operating as transshipment hubs. The associated parameters are highly significant in the production function. The results show an improvement in the average technical efficiency of ports in the Latin America and the Caribbean region from 36 percent to 50 percent between 1999 and 2009; the best-performing port in 2009 achieved a technical efficiency of 94 percent with respect to the frontier. The paper also studies possible determinants of port technical efficiency, such as ownership, corruption, terminal purpose, income per capita, and location. The results reveal positive, but weak, associations between technical efficiency with landlord ports and with lower corruption levels; stronger results are observed between technical efficiency with specialized container terminals and with average income.
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ورقة عمل خاصة ببحوث السياسات WPS6680 OCT 01, 2013
Sarriera, Javier Morales; Araya, Gonzalo; Serebrisky, Tomas; Briceno-Garmendia, Cecilia M.; Schwartz, Jordan
Indonesia is the world largest archipelagic country consisting of more than 17,000 islands spread over more than 5,000 kilometers from west to east.
... انظر المزيد + The land area is 1,860,360 km² and the sea area 5,800,000 km² with a total of 81,000 km of coastal line. The population is more than 237 million (2010). The population density is 124 inhabitants per km². The population is very uneven distributed over the islands. Java has 58 percent of the population with only 7 percent of the total area. The population density in Java is 1,055 inhabitants per km². Maluku and Papua and Kalimantan have much lesser population densities with 11 and 25 inhabitants per km², respectively. The geographical nature of Indonesia with its many islands and the uneven distribution of the population put enormous challenges in developing infrastructure and tackling regional disparities. Lack of infrastructure has hampered the effort to develop and realize the national and regional economic potentials. The organization of an efficient logistics system is a crucial factor in the socio-economic development of Indonesia. The objective of the state of logistics Indonesia 2013 is to provide a status update of logistics performance in Indonesia. In addition, specific information is provided on logistics cases.
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ورقة عمل 80871 SEP 04, 2013
Bahagia, Ir. Senator Nur; Sandee, Henry; Meeuws, Rene الإنجليزية
Despite joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) club relatively late in 1999, and then the World Trade Organization in 2004, Cambodia has made great strides since then in promoting trade with its neighbors and raising its economic growth rate, estimated to come in this year at a healthy 7.2 percent.
... انظر المزيد + In order to accelerate the country's economic leap forward, and reduce poverty levels, the Royal Government of Cambodia has decided on a major push for export growth, with ambitious targets for exporting Cambodia's large rice surplus, and for becoming better integrated into value-added regional supply chains. Cambodia's Logistics Performance Index (LPI) ranking, as measured by the World Bank, has improved in the past few years, but it still ranks a lowly 101 out of 155 countries, compared to Vietnam at 53 and Thailand at 38. There are numerous reasons for Cambodia's poor logistics performance, but the main challenges lie in two main areas: first, in a lack of transparency in fees, often informal, that serve to hide the true costs, making logistics expensive and transported goods less competitive; and second, a lack of integration of logistics services with neighboring countries, also leading to higher costs, lack of capacity, and delays. If the government shows courage and urgency in promoting a more sophisticated and cost effective logistics system, Cambodia will be much better placed to make the most of the opportunities that abound in terms of boosting trade, and of joining the ranks of rapidly growing middle income countries in the region.
رؤية أقل ـ
Cambodia has made great strides in promoting trade with its neighbors and raising its annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate to an impressive 7.3 percent in 2012; and this despite joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) club relatively late in 1999, and then the World Trade Organization in 2004.
... انظر المزيد + Cambodia's Logistics Performance Index (LPI) ranking, as measured by the World Bank, has improved in the past few years, but it still ranks below its neighbors at 101 out of 155 countries, compared with Vietnam at 53 and Thailand at 38. This means that Cambodia's farmers and manufacturers encounter greater difficulties in moving goods to markets; exporters face challenges in supplying overseas customers and integrating into regional production networks; and the cost of moving cargoes is higher than in neighboring countries. The main challenges lie in two main areas: first, in a lack of transparency in fees, often informal, that serve to hide the true costs, making logistics expensive and transported goods less competitive; and second, a lack of integration of logistics services with neighboring countries, also leading to higher costs, lack of capacity and delays. The Government realizes the importance of logistics for Cambodia's development, and has identified logistics as one of the four key pillars of the new 5-year rectangular strategy. Once the Government starts to promote a more sophisticated and cost effective logistics system, Cambodia will be much better placed to make the most of the opportunities that abound in terms of boosting trade, and of joining the ranks of rapidly growing middle-income countries in the region.
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