For millennia, the Mediterranean has been one of the most active trading areas, supported by a transport network connecting riparian cities and beyond to their hinterland.
... See More + The Mediterranean has complex trade patterns and routes--but with key differences from the past. It is no longer an isolated world economy: it is both a trading area and a transit area linking Europe and North Africa with the rest of the world through the hub-and-spoke structure of maritime networks. Understanding how trade connectivity works in the Mediterranean, and elsewhere, is important to policy makers, especially those in developing countries in the Mediterranean, concerned with the economic benefits of large investment in infrastructure. Better connectivity is expected to increase trade with distant markets and stimulate activities in the hinterland. This book is a practical exploration of the three interdependent dimensions of trade connectivity: maritime networks, port efficiency, and hinterland connectivity. Because of the complexity and richness of maritime and trade patterns in the Mediterranean, the research book combines both a regional focus and globally scalable lessons. This book is intended for a wide readership of policy makers in maritime affairs, trade, or industry; professionals from the world of finance or development institutions; and academics. It combines empirical analysis of microeconomic shipping and port data with three case studies of choice of port (focusing on Spain, Egypt, and Morocco) and five case studies on hinterland development (Barcelona; Malta; Marseilles; Port Said East, Egypt; and Tanger Med, Morocco).
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Publication 131217 OCT 22, 2018
Arvis,Jean Francois; Vesin,Vincent; Carruthers,Robin C.; Ducruet,Cesar; De Langen,Peter WubbeDisclosed
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.
... See More + 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 importance of transport corridors for trade and development, including for some of the poorest countries in the world, is widely recognized in this book.
... See More + A new consensus has also emerged that reducing trade costs and improving access to corridors is not just a matter of building infrastructure. The policies that regulate transport services providers and the movement of goods along corridors are important determinants of the social rate of return on such infrastructure investment. This book avoids optimistic assumptions regarding the prospects for new high-level agreements and decisions to facilitate transit or the possible benefits from increased use of technology. Instead, the authors argue that much can be done through the implementation of readily available existing tools. The use of these tools is often hampered by not only capacity constraints; but, equally if not more important, a lack of commitment. Political economic factors in both the landlocked countries and their transit neighbors must be recognized and addressed. This book offers examples of possible implementation strategies that, while challenging, should in principle help in overcoming these political economic constraints. The main message is that to bring about efficient trade corridors governments and stakeholders should focus on properly implementing the fiscal, regulatory, and procedural principles for international transit that encourage quality-driven logistics services. The various implementation challenges are the primary focus of this book.
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Competition around the world is increasing dramatically with the growth in manufactured trade volumes and the multitude of suppliers of comparable products.
... See More + Indonesia has long relied on trade for its growth and job creation, and has been able to compete internationally in a wide range of products. Buyers around the world are increasingly focusing on reliability of supply and order cycle times, not only for high-value goods and perishables, but also for medium and low value goods where large-scale wholesalers and retailers seek to minimize inventories and reduce the risk of overstocking, while ensuring product availability. This is an area in which Indonesia can make significant progress by reducing lead time for producers importing raw materials. The inbound supply logistics performance is a key contributor to competitiveness by reducing transaction costs. There is no consensus on the definition of logistics, but it typically includes the following key elements: (i) infrastructure: ports, terminals, railways, and roads; (ii) operations: warehousing, storage, local distribution, trucking, and cabotage; and (iii) services: freight forwarders, and customs brokers. The objective of such activities is chain and shipping products (the outbound supply chain), as well as by increasing reliability in meeting fixed delivery times. The Logistics Performance Index (LPI) aggregates the performance in customs procedures, infrastructure quality, ability to track and trace shipments, timeliness in reaching a destination, competence of the domestic logistics industry and the ease of arranging international shipments. In Indonesia, competence of the local logistics industry (both private and public logistics service providers such as road transport operators, customs brokers, etc) and timeliness of shipments in reaching destination are key bottlenecks in Indonesia's logistics performance. The LPI also shows that: a) logistics infrastructure (ports, roads, warehouses) is weaker than in Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Thailand; b) the rate of physical inspection at customs is substantially higher than neighboring countries, causing uncertainty; and c) review procedures (for conflict resolution) are complex, causing delays and uncertainty.
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The concept of affordability is widely used when discussing urban public transport fares in the presence of low incomes and poverty, but it is not universally accepted as being meaningful.
... See More + Traveler reactions to fare increases or decreases are of major interest to operators of transport services, since they affect patronage therefore revenue. This aspect is captured by a standard economic notion of price elasticity, with an established definition, measurement methods, and interpretation. When a fare increase leads to a loss of passengers at the low end of the income scale, the operator is concerned because of the loss of revenue, but not more than that. Understanding the concept and having some knowledge of the values of price elasticity in this context is necessary for the operator to make informed decisions about setting tariffs (sufficiency includes a requirement to know also about costs). The work undertaken in the last year by the World Bank on affordability has been limited to constructing an affordability index and estimating its values for twenty seven cities. Two important lessons learned from many efforts to make urban transport affordable is that subsidies generally have a very high "leakage" so that most of the advantages do not go to those who really need them, and that unless a subsidy has a reliable and sustainable funding mechanism, the negative impacts on the transport operator can more than outweigh any benefits to poor passengers.
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The analysis reported here was prompted by a realization that there was little reliable and consistent information on what proportion of household income is spent on urban public transport.
... See More + The information available uses inconsistent definitions of what costs are included and how income is measured, making comparisons between cities difficult. The authors report here on about a dozen studies that have addressed the issue of affordability. Though different measures are used in different countries, making it difficult to compare the results between cities, from the studies in South America, South Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, East Asia and Australasia summarized here, the authors make clear that the affordability of urban transport is considered an issue of importance throughout the developing world. There is also evidence that the high cost of urban transport is having a negative impact on the lives of the urban poor - either through restricting their access to jobs that are within feasible walking or cycling distance, by consuming an unsustainable proportion of their income, or by dramatically curtailing the number of journeys that they make. The problem is possibly most grave in Africa, the continent for which there is the least documentation. To address the need for easily available and comprehensive comparative information on affordability of public transport fares, the authors developed an Affordability Index to be used as a first indication of the affordability of fares in a particular city. The second half of this report describes the construction of this Affordability Index and then describes the results from applying this Index to 27 cities.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 33900 JAN 01, 2005
This transport policy note examining the Russian transport system finds that it must focus more on overall coordination among different transport modes, and help reduce imbalances among regions.
... See More + This will be accomplished through improving the legal framework, monitoring compliance with new rules of competition and access to infrastructure, developing safety and environmental standards, providing for safety against terrorism and crime, and ensuring the provision of minimum transportation services to all the population and regions of the country. The report recommends developing and improving rail and road transport links to the European union and rail links to China and the republic of Korea to help increase trade; coordinating the competition between rail and road services to meet demand; make more effective use of subsidies and evolve new structures to ensure the continuation of viable and affordable urban public transport; linking cities, towns, and communities with certain population sizes by road networks; upgrading trade corridors to international standards; outsourcing road maintenance and making transport procurement more transparent and open to competition; reviewing all road design standards, compatible with vehicles in operation; upon receiving the outcome of the road safety review, implement changes focusing on driver safety, ad driver and vehicle regulation to reduce accidents; invest at least RUR700 billion in railways to maintain the existing stock of fixed assets; provide core urban public transport services through long-term contracts for selected routes or in sections of the city; implement traffic management measures to make public transport more efficient and improve traffic flow; and improve long-distance land access to ports; and continue to simplify trade facilitation procedures.
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This transport policy note examining the Russian transport system finds that it must focus more on overall coordination among different transport modes, and help reduce imbalances among regions.
... See More + This will be accomplished through improving the legal framework, monitoring compliance with new rules of competition and access to infrastructure, developing safety and environmental standards, providing for safety against terrorism and crime, and ensuring the provision of minimum transportation services to all the population and regions of the country. The report recommends developing and improving rail and road transport links to the European union and rail links to China and the republic of Korea to help increase trade; coordinating the competition between rail and road services to meet demand; make more effective use of subsidies and evolve new structures to ensure the continuation of viable and affordable urban public transport; linking cities, towns, and communities with certain population sizes by road networks; upgrading trade corridors to international standards; outsourcing road maintenance and making transport procurement more transparent and open to competition; reviewing all road design standards, compatible with vehicles in operation; upon receiving the outcome of the road safety review, implement changes focusing on driver safety, ad driver and vehicle regulation to reduce accidents; invest at least RUR700 billion in railways to maintain the existing stock of fixed assets; provide core urban public transport services through long-term contracts for selected routes or in sections of the city; implement traffic management measures to make public transport more efficient and improve traffic flow; and improve long-distance land access to ports; and continue to simplify trade facilitation procedures.
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This report is part of a strategy to promotes trade competitiveness within the East Asia and Pacific Region. It presents an overview of the logistics issues facing East Asia countries and proposes a development agenda for them.
... See More + Based on the recognition that the countries have basic differences in their level of development, extent of openness, and composition of trade, it begins by discussing the benefits of improved logistics. The East Asian countries are organized into an action matrix, with an analysis of the logistics needs appropriate to each group. The country working papers (volumes 2, 3, & 5)discuss the assessment of preset logistics services and the impediments they impose upon, and opportunities they offer for, expanded trade, including policy reform proposals. The special report on ports (volume 4) addresses port development in relation to urban growth.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27840 JUN 01, 2003
This report is part of a strategy to promotes trade competitiveness within the East Asia and Pacific Region. It presents an overview of the logistics issues facing East Asia countries and proposes a development agenda for them.
... See More + Based on the recognition that the countries have basic differences in their level of development, extent of openness, and composition of trade, it begins by discussing the benefits of improved logistics. The East Asian countries are organized into an action matrix, with an analysis of the logistics needs appropriate to each group. The country working papers (volumes 2, 3, & 5)discuss the assessment of preset logistics services and the impediments they impose upon, and opportunities they offer for, expanded trade, including policy reform proposals. The special report on ports (volume 4) addresses port development in relation to urban growth.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27840 JUN 01, 2003
This report is part of a strategy to promotes trade competitiveness within the East Asia and Pacific Region. It presents an overview of the logistics issues facing East Asia countries and proposes a development agenda for them.
... See More + Based on the recognition that the countries have basic differences in their level of development, extent of openness, and composition of trade, it begins by discussing the benefits of improved logistics. The East Asian countries are organized into an action matrix, with an analysis of the logistics needs appropriate to each group. The country working papers (volumes 2, 3, & 5)discuss the assessment of preset logistics services and the impediments they impose upon, and opportunities they offer for, expanded trade, including policy reform proposals. The special report on ports (volume 4) addresses port development in relation to urban growth.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27840 JUN 01, 2003
This report is part of a strategy to promotes trade competitiveness within the East Asia and Pacific Region. It presents an overview of the logistics issues facing East Asia countries and proposes a development agenda for them.
... See More + Based on the recognition that the countries have basic differences in their level of development, extent of openness, and composition of trade, it begins by discussing the benefits of improved logistics. The East Asian countries are organized into an action matrix, with an analysis of the logistics needs appropriate to each group. The country working papers (volumes 2, 3, & 5)discuss the assessment of preset logistics services and the impediments they impose upon, and opportunities they offer for, expanded trade, including policy reform proposals. The special report on ports (volume 4) addresses port development in relation to urban growth.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27840 MAY 01, 2003
This report is part of a strategy to promotes trade competitiveness within the East Asia and Pacific Region. It presents an overview of the logistics issues facing East Asia countries and proposes a development agenda for them.
... See More + Based on the recognition that the countries have basic differences in their level of development, extent of openness, and composition of trade, it begins by discussing the benefits of improved logistics. The East Asian countries are organized into an action matrix, with an analysis of the logistics needs appropriate to each group. The country working papers (volumes 2, 3, & 5)discuss the assessment of preset logistics services and the impediments they impose upon, and opportunities they offer for, expanded trade, including policy reform proposals. The special report on ports (volume 4) addresses port development in relation to urban growth.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27840 JAN 01, 2003
This report is part of a strategy to promotes trade competitiveness within the East Asia and Pacific Region. It presents an overview of the logistics issues facing East Asia countries and proposes a development agenda for them.
... See More + Based on the recognition that the countries have basic differences in their level of development, extent of openness, and composition of trade, it begins by discussing the benefits of improved logistics. The East Asian countries are organized into an action matrix, with an analysis of the logistics needs appropriate to each group. The country working papers (volumes 2, 3, & 5)discuss the assessment of preset logistics services and the impediments they impose upon, and opportunities they offer for, expanded trade, including policy reform proposals. The special report on ports (volume 4) addresses port development in relation to urban growth.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27840 NOV 01, 2002
There are five sections in this report. The first section analysis growth, poverty reduction, trade and logistics. The study indicates that a stimulus in economic growth tends to reduce poverty.
... See More + Section two analysis global trends in transport and logistics that determine the competitive advantage and growth performance of trading in global economy. Transport and logistics have benefited from technological and institutional changes, and has developed the maritime transport, warehousing facilities, and communication. The net result has been to facilitate globalization. Section three analysis trade led growth in East Asia. The sustained growth performance is usually attributed to the region's global integration. Section four: Logistics in East Asia - the single most important impact of globalization in East Asian countries has been the integration of local production and supply. Section five - a strategy to stimulate trade-led poverty reduction. This analysis has demonstrated the significance of the role of trade in accelerating economic growth and reducing poverty. In addition, the trade pattern of the region is focused in terms of final market destination.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 25400 JUN 30, 2002
Slovakia’s transport sector has not suffered from the dramatic reductions in demand and neglect of its infrastructure that have afflicted many of its neighbors.
... See More + However, current under-maintenance is eating away at the stock of transport infrastructure and is unsustainable in anything more than the very short term. In addition, despite good intentions, progress on commercializing its transport operations has not progressed far enough to put them in a strong position to confront the pressures they will face when Slovakia enters the European Union, hopefully at the beginning of 2004. There is now a short window of opportunity to make good on deferred maintenance, establish a more sustainable maintenance regime and make good on the previous good intentions for commercialization. The opportunity exists also for the institutional structure of the sector to be revised so as to better reflect the interests of transport users, reform the way that infrastructure is financed and to systematically eliminate the remaining regulatory protections given to existing operators. The Strategy presented here shows how these objectives can best be reached, and how the World Bank can help bring them about. If the Strategy is implemented, action will have been taken before there is a problem and order will have been introduced before disorder takes over.
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