Syria ranked 135 out of 150 countries in the world in the Logistics Performance Index released by the World Bank.
The LPI is based on a worldwide survey of global freight forwarders and express carriers and measures performance along the logistics supply chain within a country and is meant to provide the first in-depth cross-country assessment of the logistics gap among countries.
The LPI is a composite of seven indices:
Customs
Infrastructure
International Shipments
Logistics Competence
Tracking & Tracing
Domestic Logistics Costs
Timeliness
The survey assigns scores to the seven indices that range from one to five, with five for the best and one the worst.
Syria overall LPI rank is 135 with a score of 2.09. In customs it ranked 108; in infrastructure 131; in international shipments 138; in logistics competence 145; in tracking & tracing 137; in domestic logistics costs 84; and in timeliness 118.
Syria ranks best in domestic logistics costs, which measures the cost of the local transportation activities costs and worst in logistics competence.
In the Middle East and North Africa region, Syria ranks 15 out of 16 countries. Only Algeria does worse. Worldwide, Syria ranks ahead of Albania and Tanzania, and behind Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Worldwide Singapore ranks first, followed by the Netherlands and Germany while Afghanistan ranks last.
According to the report the countries at the bottom of the list are often trapped in a vicious circle of overregulation, poor quality services, and underinvestment, while the countries that top the LPI ranking are typically key players in the logistics industry.
A key insight from the survey of logistics professionals is that, costs and timeliness are of paramount importance.
© The Syria Report 2007
