Bangladesh has climbed up twelve notches in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2023, ranking 88th among 139 countries due to significant investments in both soft and hard infrastructure, as well as technology.

Bangladesh had ranked 100th in this index back in 2018, while in 2016, it stood at 87th position. The World Bank’s index came out every two years from 2010 to 2018. However, due to the Covid-19 crisis, the report witnessed a pause and then released in 2023.

The country was 87th among 160 economies in 2016 and 108th in 2014.

With a score of 2.6, Bangladesh came in third among the five South Asian economies assessed in the 2023 index, behind India (38th) and Sri Lanka (73).

Afghanistan placed at the bottom of the index, while Bhutan ranked 97th.

As a global benchmarking tool in the area, the World Bank LPI assesses the performances of 139 countries. The index ap-plies six criteria – customs, infrastructure, ease of arranging shipments, quality of logistic services, timeliness, and tracking & tracing.

It suggests policy actions for improving individual components in the index.

Singapore topped the LPI, up from fifth place in the previous report compiled in 2018, replacing Germany in the top slot. Finland ranked second whilst Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland shared the third spot jointly.

The UAE (up from 14th place), and Hong Kong stood at seventh position along with Austria, Belgium, Canada, and Sweden.

Bangladesh among top 5 apparel makers
The World Bank’s LPI is a measure of countries’ ability to move goods across borders with speed and reliability. According to the Index, the top five (by export values) textile manufacturing countries are China, Bangladesh, India, Turkey and Vi-etnam.

Bangladesh has the highest cost of logistics around $1,833.2 per 100kg compared to the remaining four countries. Vietnam has the lowest logistics costs at $717 per 100kg, while India, Turkey, and China have logistics costs of $1,080, $792, and $980 per 100kg respectively.

The LPI is a crucial part of global efforts to better understand logistics performance in the context of increasingly complex supply chains.

It is a 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 logistics performance.