| Abstrakt: |
A sound logistics environment is key to a country's trading opportunities. Poor trade logistics performance--understood as the cost, the time and the complexity involved in import and export activities--precludes many countries from diversifying their economies and can thus hamper trade, growth and employment. This is particularly relevant for developing countries, where a weak logistics environment often impedes trade. Delays in the supply chain, for instance at border crossings, increases transportation and thereby increases product costs, making exports less competitive. They force companies to hold higher inventories to avoid production stoppages due to delays in procuring preliminary products. Increasing supply chain performance can foster trade, growth and competitiveness more than tariff reductions can and is typically politically more feasible. High logistics performance is closely linked to trade facilitation as the latter deals with trade procedures that can impede trade once formal trade barriers such as tariffs have been eliminated. The World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), which entered into force in 2017, represents a major step forward for fostering trade globally and for developing countries. The TFA can be expected to increase the reliability and predictability of supply chains and thus may support higher logistics performance. The purpose of the paper is to take stock of the current state of knowledge about a country's logistics environment as an enabler of international trade, with a focus on developing countries. The paper is based on the key words logistics, international trade, exports, growth, and development. The studies reviewed underline the strong link between a wellfunctioning logistics environment and a country's trading opportunities. Logistics often acts as a bottleneck for countries wishing to increase their exports. High logistics performance increases firm productivity and can thus contribute to higher economic growth. Policymakers concerned with the welfare of their countries often strive to provide an enabling environment for private sector actors to export higher volumes and more sophisticated goods. This paper shows why it is worthwhile for policymakers to focus some of their efforts on improving the logistics environment. The paper summarizes the state of knowledge in the field. It identifies knowledge gaps and directions for future research. Its findings may be of value to researchers and policymakers, especially in countries with a weak logistics environment or with external constraints such as being landlocked, that wish to foster an enabling environment for high value exports and for integration of their country into global value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
