Bangladesh has moved in World's Business ranking

Bangladesh has emerged as an overperforming country in proving efficiency of trading goods around the world, according to a new World Bank survey. Bangladesh ranked 79 th in the global Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI) study released on Friday. It was in the 87 th position in the 2007 survey. The LPI is an "interactive benchmarking tool" created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities in their performance in trade logistics, the WB says. The LPI 2010 allows for comparisons across 155 countries. It is based on a worldwide survey of operators on the ground (global freight forwarders and express carriers), providing feedback on the logistics ' friendliness' of the countries in which they operate and those with which they trade. The report says Bangladesh has made a significant improvement in customs, infrastructure, and lead-time. In terms of logistic quality and competence, however, Bangladesh was in the 96 th position. "Economic competitiveness is relentlessly driving countries to strengthen performance, and improving trade logistics is a smart way to deliver more efficiencies, lower costs and added economic growth," said World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick. Nine other most significant overperformers are: China, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Madagascar, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, and Vietnam. Germany is the top performer among the 155 economies followed by Singapore, Sweden and the Netherlands. According to the LPI, high income economies dominate the top logistics rankings, with most of them occupying important places in global and regional supply chains. By contrast, the 10 lowest performing countries are almost all from the low and lower income groups. Although the study shows a substantial " logistics gap" between rich countries and most developing countries, it finds positive trends in some areas essential to logistics performance and trade. Some are the modernisation of customs, use of information technology and development of private logistics services. WHAT SCORES MEAN The LPI is the weighted average of the country scores on the six key dimensions: (a) efficiency of the clearance process by border control agencies, including customs, (b) quality of trade and transport related infrastructure, (c) ease of arranging competitively priced shipments, (d) competence and quality of logistics services, (e) ability to track and trace consignments, and (f) timeliness of shipments in reaching destinations within the scheduled or expected delivery time. In the LPI index 2010 , Bangladesh scored 2.74 where top country Germany bagged 4.11 points. In the 2007 report, Bangladesh ranked 87 th with a score of 2.47. An overperformer is a country with a higher LPI score than expected -- based solely on its income level. An underperformer is a country with a lower than expected LPI scores. Bangladesh's shipment lead-time came down to 1.41 days in the latest survey from 4.1 days in 2007. In terms of international shipment, Bangladesh ranked 61 st in the latest survey, which was 96 th in 2007. In the customs procedure, Bangladesh ranked 125 th in 2007 , which is 90 th now. The 2010 report has placed Bangladesh in the 72 nd position in terms of infrastructure. The ranking was 82 nd in the 2007 report. The 10 most significant underperformers are Botswana, Croatia, Eritrea, Fiji, Gabon, Greece, Montenegro, Namibia, Russian Federation, and Slovenia. The existence of these two groups, as well as the general dispersion in performance within income groups, suggests that policy has a strong influence on logistics sector performance. According to the report, among the top 10 low-income countries, Bangladesh ranked sixth after Vietnam, Senegal, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Benin. Congo, Madagascar, Kyrgyz Republic and Tanzania are the other four among the low-income group.