Review of Maritime Transport 2010 - Unctad

CHapteR 7: Review of ReGionaL DeveLopMents in asia anD tHe paCifiC 161
Figure 7.7. The cost of trade is highest in the landlocked developing countries
LLDCs
West Asia
South Asia
South-East Asia
East Asia
744
686
650
648
Source: World Bank (2010). Doing Business.
the average cost of importing is only $950. A similar
situation exists with regard to exporting goods, and
this prevents some of the Asian LLDCs from being
more competitive in global markets.
Unnecessary delays and the resultant higher
transaction costs have a major impact on trade
efficiency. The time taken and the costs incurred in
trading have a close correlation with the number of
documents required in order to export and import (fig.
7.8). Traders in Asian LLDCs need to submit almost
twice as many trade documents as their counterparts
in non-LLDC neighbours do. On average, it takes 62
days for an Asian LLDC to export, whereas a coastal
or island country in this region takes only 18 days.
Importing goods takes, on average, 64 days for Asian
LLDCs – nearly three times as long as for their coastal
neighbours. 27
Figure 7.8 shows that document preparation accounts
for the largest share of the delays experienced.
Figures 7.9, 7.10 and 7.11 show that document
preparation takes, on average, as much as 49 per
cent of the entire lead time to trade either imports or
exports. This is mainly because document preparation
requires arranging for a number of commercial and
administrative forms and permits, including a packing
list, a bill of lading, a certificate of origin, a commercial
invoice, terminal handling receipts, an import licence,
942
1303
1125
1136
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
Cost to export (US$ per container) Cost to import (US$ per container)
2728
3231
and a technical or health certificate, to supplement the
customs declaration. Filling in these numerous forms
is a cumbersome process. Information required for
the forms is often not readily available, and frequently,
due to the lack of harmonization with international
standards, data may have to be inserted repeatedly,
which can cause errors to be introduced, which, in
turn, necessitates time-consuming and error-prone
correction processes. Research suggests that
importing a single consignment requires an average
of 36 original paper documents and 240 copies from
27 parties, 28 which might explain why traders need to
spend so much time on preparing the import or export
documentation.
Another important factor contributing to longer import
and export times is the number of days that cargo
spends in inland transportation, including handling,
which amounts to 25 per cent of the total time to trade.
Next to physical constraints related to the existence
and quality of road and railway infrastructure, it is nonphysical
bottlenecks at land borders that contribute
significantly to extending inland transport times.
Interestingly, customs clearance and controls and
port handling seem to take the shortest times. The
average time for customs clearance and technical
control represents one quarter of the time spent on
document preparation. This may be partly attributed