Egypt has moved up 13 places to rank 49 in the World Bank’s report, which is released every two years, from its previous rank of 62 in 2014.
“Connecting to Compete 2016: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy” ranks 160 countries based on their trade logistics performance.
Logistics organise the movement of goods through a network of activities and services operating at the global, regional, and local scale. Efficient logistics connect people and firms to markets and opportunities, and help achieve higher levels of productivity and welfare.
The report ranks countries on a number of dimensions of supply chain performance, including infrastructure, quality of service, shipment reliability, and border clearance efficiency. Egypt has improved in four out of the six sub-indices compared to 2014.
The results of “Connecting to Compete 2016” point to Germany as the best performing country, with a Logistics Performance Index (LPI) score of 4.23, and Syria as the lowest with a score of 1.6.
“Logistics performance in both international and domestic trade is central to countries’ economic growth and competitiveness,” senior director for the World Bank Group’s Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice Anabel Gonzalez said.
That comes amidst the Egyptian government’s efforts to ease trade and improve infrastructure. The government will allocate EGP 107bn in investments to the infrastructure sector during fiscal year (FY) 2016/17─a 50% increase compared to FY 2015/16.
The renovation of the infrastructure sector in Egypt is considered by the government as a method of increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) to the country, which reached $5.8bn in FY 2015/16, marking a 13.7% increase compared to FY 2014/15.
Consequently, Egypt ranked third among the top performing lower-middle income economies, following India and Kenya. North African and Middle Eastern developing countries are doing comparatively worse than their income level would indicate, due to lack of integration, political unrest, and security challenges.
Global trade is dependent on logistics, therefore a country’s import and export efficacy determine how it will grow and compete in the global economy.
