Chapter 4 Investment Climate Study of ASEAN Member ... - ERIA

Even for trading across borders with relatively high ranking, there remains room forfurther improvement in terms of the number of days and the costs required for exportand import processes. For instance, reduction of costs for exports and imports isnecessary particularly for Lao PDR, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and thereduction of time for export and import operations is needed mainly for Lao PDR,Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. To realize them requires the development of alogistics-related infrastructure such as ports and roads, and improved efficiency incustoms clearance in addition to the reduction (and simplification) of tariffs and nontariffmeasures (NTMs).Table 2.3 presents a global competitiveness index (GCI) by country and by category,obtained from the Global Competitiveness Report, highlighting cases with rankingslower than half of the number of sample countries. The figures in the upper portion ofTable 2.3 (a)/(b)/(c) indicate the ranking of a country among 133/134/125 countries forthe items concerned (low figures indicate high rankings), while the figures in the lowerportion of the table indicate the score (high numbers indicate high scores with 7 as thefull score). The GCI evaluates the competitiveness of countries based on three broadcategories with two to six sub-categories. The three broad categories are basicrequirements, efficiency enhancers, and innovation and sophistication factors. The subcategoriesare further broken down into the much more precise factors shown in TableA.2.1 in the Appendix. 4Although the degree of competitiveness of a specific country4 Factors considered as disadvantages are those ranked below 10 for Singapore with an overallranking in the top 10 economies, those ranked equal to or lower than the economy's overall ranking174