Romania ranks 60th for its logistics performance among the 166 countries included in the World Bank’s logistics performance index - LPI 2016. In 2014, Romania was 40th in the same ranking.

On a scale of 1 to 5, Romania’s LPI score went down from 3.26, in 2014, to 2.99, in 2016. Germany ranks first for the third year in a row, with a score of 4.23, followed by Luxembourg, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Romania’s drop in the ranking is not due to infrastructure. On the contrary, the specialists in the logistics sector think that the country has made some progress in terms of infrastructure, for which Romania ranks 58th up from 64th in 2014. Romania has also made some progress in the customs department (up from 59th to 50th).

However, Romania saw significant regress in international shipments, logistics competence, tracking&tracing, and most of all in timeliness, which means that fewer shipments reached their destination within the scheduled or expected delivery time, according to the study. Romania ranks only 81st in for timeliness, down from 27th in 2014, which is a huge involution.

The Logistics Performance Index is an interactive benchmarking tool created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics and what they can do to improve their performance. The LPI 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, according to the World Bank.

The LPI uses six key dimensions to benchmark countries' performance: efficiency of the clearance process, quality of trade and transport related infrastructure, ease of arranging competitively priced shipments, competence and quality of logistics services, ability to track and trace consignments, and timeliness of shipments in reaching destination.

The full study can be found here.

editor@romania-insider.com