The development of trade logistics slowed down over the past two years because of the global recession, the World Bank said in the "Connecting to Compete 2012 - Trade Logistics in the Global Economy" report earlier in the week.
The report, which is released every two years, covers 155 countries ranked according to surveys among global freight forwarders and express carriers.
Singapore leads the rankings according to development of trade capacities with a score of 4.13, followed by Hong Kong with 4.12 points and Finland with 4.05 points.
Croatia was ranked 42nd, as against 74th two years ago, with a score of 3.16.
Burundi, Djibouti and Haiti were at the bottom of the rankings.
For the first time, the LPI included ecological indicators, revealing a sudden spreading of green logistics in countries with high incomes and emerging economies.
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. They combine in-depth knowledge of the countries in which they operate with informed qualitative assessments of other countries with which they trade, and experience of global logistics environment.
Feedback from operators is supplemented with quantitative data on the performance of key components of the logistics chain in the country of work.
The LPI consists of both qualitative and quantitative measures and helps build profiles of logistics friendliness for these countries. It measures performance along the logistics supply chain within a country and offers two different perspectives: International and Domestic.
International LPI provides qualitative evaluations of a country in six areas by its trading partners - logistics professionals working outside the country.
Domestic LPI provides both qualitative and quantitative assessments of a country by logistics professionals working inside it. It includes detailed information on the logistics environment, core logistics processes, institutions, and performance time and cost data.
The LPI survey was designed and implemented by the World Bank International Trade and Transport Departments, with Finland's Turku School of Economics (TSE). It was endorsed and promoted by the Global Facilitation Partnership for Transportation and Trade (GFP).
World Bank conducts the LPI Survey every two years to improve the reliability of the indicators and to build a dataset comparable across countries and over time.
The international score uses six key dimensions to benchmark countries' performance: customs, infrastructure, international shipments, logistics competence, tracking and tracing, and timelines.
The score ranges from 1 to 5.