Effect of time and Cost
In our world today the movement of goods and services is growing every day creating a considerable competitive edge that binds slow and inefficient countries from growing its economy and broaden its market.
In short, trade competitiveness is greatly affected by economies trade procedures and infrastructure, Excessive delays in exporting and importing can lower the volume of trade. A 10% reduction in the time it takes to move cargo from the production line to the ship increases exports by 4%, all else being equal. In Sub-Saharan Africa reducing inland travel time by 1 day increases exports by 7%. In Uruguay a 10% increase in the median time spent in customs lowers the growth rate of exports by 1.8%.
Transport and non-transport logistics costs for export commodities from the MNA region are quite substantial, ranging from 7–25 per cent of landed product prices. Underlying these costs are key bottlenecks identified as: inefficient trucking and transport services, low export volume leading to long shipping times and the need for costly inventory accumulation, aggressive, obstructive customs authorities and procedures, low and inconsistent product quality, an underdeveloped transport intermediary sector, inefficient cross-border transit procedures and others.
One of the major delaying causes is the preparation of the documents; some countries like Azerbaijan, Colombia and Singapore have created a single trade window to facilitate the documentation & payment.
The 2 biggest obstacles for traders in low-ranking economies are document preparation and inland transport because of administrative hurdles and poor infrastructure.
The average time to export a standard containerized cargo from MENA region is 28.4 days with standard deviation of 9.96, on average each additional day that a product is delayed prior to being shipped reduces trade by at