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This survey reviews the current state of the economic literature, assessing the impact of transport policies on growth, inclusion, and sustainability in a developing country context. The findings are summarized and methodologies are critically assessed, especially those dealing with endogeneity issues in empirical studies. The specific implementation challenges of transport policies in developing countries are discussed.

The authors use different data sets to investigate the dependence of transport costs on geography and infrastructure. Infrastructure is an important determinant of transport costs, especially for landlocked countries. Analysis of bilateral trade data confirms the importance of infrastructure and gives an estimate of the elasticity of trade flows with respect to the trade cost factor of around-3. A deterioration of infrastructure from the median to the 75th percentile raises transport costs by 12 percentage points and reduces trade volumes by 28 percent. Analysis of African trade flows indicates that their relatively low level is largely due to poor infrastructure.

This report responds to a request from the Government of Timor-Leste (GoTL) and Dr. Mari Alkatiri. The request was for World Bank assistance to collaborate on a range of studies relating to opportunities in the special economic zone, including community development, trade and competitiveness, and regional integration. The analysis builds on a situation analysis prepared by the Zona Especial de Economia Social de Mercado (ZEESM) authority in March 2014. The transfer of significant responsibility for Oecusse’s development to the ZEESM authority, reflects a political rapprochement and collaboration between Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and Dr. Alkatiri. The report is in two volumes. Volume one presents an overview of Oecusse’s current state in chapter one with analysis of living standards, economic activity including trade, and current constraints. Chapter two analyzes Oecusse’s phased economic potential through a range of phase one development interventions focusing on agriculture, and considers the pre-requisites for developing an SEZ in Oecusse. Volume two contains more comprehensive background chapters with full analysis of living standards in chapter three, agriculture in chapter four, transport corridor in chapter five, and migration in chapter six.

This paper examines the effects of market integration on household consumption using data on seven food and two energy markets across South Sudan. The analysis reveals that markets in South Sudan are highly segmented. Price differences for narrowly defined products, across cities exceed in some cases 100 percent. In addition, price volatility increased substantially following the imposition of the trade restrictions with Sudan. This increase tends to hurt disproportionately the poor, who cannot smooth purchasing decisions over time because of liquidity constraints. Transportation costs explain almost half of the variation in food prices across space, and improving the quality of roads has a large potential to reduce prices in the most expensive towns. On the basis of this price effect, the simulations suggest that bringing all road quality across states to that of primary roads can yield a reduction in poverty from the rate of 51.7 percent in 2009 to between 42.8 and 46.9 percent. These estimates have to be interpreted as conservative, as they do not take into account the second-order effects of road construction from increased trade that will result from better road connectivity.

Regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is crucial for its further economic development and, more importantly, its structural transformation away from agriculture towards higher value-added activities, such as manufacturing and services. Yet there are many paths towards greater integration, some of which are easier than others. In order to gain insights into how regional integration is occurring in SSA, determine impediments to it, and develop recommendations for how the World Bank and other development agencies can help further facilitate it, the World Bank commissioned a set of political economy of regional integration studies covering sector analyses of agriculture, financial services, professional services, trade facilitation, and transport. This report summarizes the findings from the sector studies and suggests recommendations for further efforts in these areas by the World Bank and other development agencies. In a comparative context, the findings of the studies suggest cautious optimism for regional integration efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. Economic integration is more likely to succeed when it occurs alongside regional attempts at improving political stability and or developing joint infrastructure.

In considering the prospects for expanding non-commodities exports, the SACU region faces a global environment that has changed markedly over the past two decades. First, trade is increasingly shifting away from high income countries and toward developing countries. Second and perhaps most importantly, is the increasing importance of or ‘global production networks’ or ‘global value chains’ (GVCs). With wages rising rapidly in China and other places where GVC-oriented trade is concentrated, parts of these value chains are migrating to new global locations. Some estimates indicate that over the next generation 85 million manufacturing jobs will migrate from coastal China, and Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be a major beneficiary. The SACU region, with its abundance of natural capital and surplus labor, along with a relatively high quality infrastructure and institutional environment, should be in a good position to attract investment and create a ‘factory Southern Africa’. Beyond assembly manufacturing that is typical of GVCs (e.g. apparel, electronics, automotive), the region should also be well-placed to compete as a location for value-addition to agricultural and mineral commodities (‘beneficiation’). Both types of investment would not only drive exports and have the potential to create significant employment, but also support upgrading by accessing global technologies and knowledge. And with growing markets across Africa, a ‘factory Southern Africa’ might increasingly be sustainable in the regional context.

Transport and logistics infrastructure is a critical determinant of the competitiveness of a country's producers and exporters. Well-functioning transport and logistics infrastructure relies not just on hardware, but critically on the operating environment that emerges from the interaction between private sector operators; national policies and regulatory regimes; and, in many countries, state-owned owners and operators of core infrastructure. This paper looks at the case of South Africa, where constraints in access, pricing, reliability, and network interfaces, particularly in the port and rail network, are eroding the competitiveness of South African exporters. The paper draws on interviews with a wide range of exporters along with secondary research to examine South Africa's port and rail network, and explores the underlying factors contributing to these constraints, including chronic underinvestment, an inadequate regulatory environment, insufficient private sector participation, and weak regional integration. The paper concludes with a review of the reforms needed to deliver a more broadly accessible and competitive rail and port sector based on international case examples. It highlights the need for institutional reforms to promote competitive pricing; private sector participation to increase investment and improve service delivery; information and coordination to address market failures and improve access; and cooperation to improve intermodal, interregional, and institutional interfaces.

The countries comprising the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) are currently not very integrated into global value chains (GVCs), potentially missing out on important development opportunities. Accordingly, we explore high level options for promoting their integration. Given East Asia’s spectacular success with integrating into GVCs, we first assess the probability that SACU can copy their flying geese pattern. That was initiated by Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) investing in successive East Asian countries thereby becoming the lead geese, to be joined subsequently by MNCs from other countries. We argue that the conditions for pursuing a flying geese approach are difficult to replicate in SACU. Therefore, we proffer and explore the proposition that South Africa could serve as the gateway for harnessing MNC geese flying from third countries into the SACU region, in time propelling regional development through knowledge and investment spillovers, and serving as a conduit into GVCs. However, there may be substantial obstacles to deepening this integration potential. Other African gateways are emerging as alternatives to South Africa. And some SACU governments would prefer to build regional value chains (RVCs) rather than prioritize GVC integration. We argue that RVCs are complements to GVCs. SACU countries, excluding South Africa, may not attract many world leading MNCs since their markets are small, but could attract smaller regional players from South Africa or elsewhere. Thus building RVCs in the short run could assist with integration into GVCs in the longer run. Overall, this requires harnessing South African and MNC geese to the South African gateway, in a mutually complementary strategy.

The trade facilitation facility (TFF) was launched to help low-income countries improve their competitiveness by reducing the costs of engaging in international trade, thus supporting their efforts to reduce poverty and achieve the millennium development goals. This report summarizes the outcomes of the TFF between its establishment in 2009 and its end in 2015. The report highlights and reviews the accomplishments and lessons learned of TFF; it also discusses and reflects the perspective of task team leaders and relevant World Bank Group officials on the Bank Group’s continuing work in the trade facilitation sphere. The report presents results of TFF-funded activities and programs managed by staff from a large cross section of Bank Group sectors, including transport, agriculture, governance (customs), international trade, and private sector development. The report is organized as follows: chapter one give introduction. Chapter two provides an overview of the TFF portfolio. Chapter three looks at TFF as enabler of deepening regional integration, highlighting some of the facility’s accomplishments from a geographic and thematic perspective, particularly the extent to which TFF complemented Bank infrastructure operations and nurtured progress on trade facilitation instruments that countries and regional economic communities (RECs) have adopted but failed to implement. Chapter four, expanding thematic insights, addresses conceptual themes in trade facilitation. Chapter five, conclusions and contributions, sums up the areas in which TFF has contributed to moving the regional and multilateral trade facilitation agenda.

In Zimbabwe trade has been a driver of economic growth, rising incomes, and progressive empowerment of Zimbabweans through rising standards of living and the promise of better jobs. Since 1980, through good years and bad years, increases in exports have been positively associated with increases in national income. Zimbabwe's location and resource base, together with a low-cost but relatively well educated labor force, have endowed it with a naturally high trade ratio built on a diversified base that facilitates using trade as an engine of growth. While trade volumes have rebounded smartly from the deep recession of 2007-2008, these do not offset other worrisome longer-term trends: 1) export growth during the last decade has been lackluster and failed to drive high growth; 2) agricultural exports, other than tobacco, have lost their once dominant role in the region, and are no longer a source of diversification; 3) manufacturing has withered in a continuing secular decline; and 4) Zimbabwe's export basket has become less diversified and more dependent on a narrow range of mineral and, to a lesser extent, agricultural products. In short, exports have become less diversified, less-technologically sophisticated, and less labor-intensive, and ever more dependent on a few large mining activities to provide foreign exchange and employment. This report traces the roots of this poor performance to several policy issues: poor predictability of macroeconomic policy and economic governance has created an unfavorable climate for private investment and trade; a tariff structure that dampens export profitability; industrial policies (indigenization policy in particular) that undermine investor confidence and inhibits private investment; and finally, competition-limiting policies toward services that limit connectivity of Zimbabweans and raise trade costs. The good news arising from the study is that the remedies for these policy shortcomings lie in Zimbabwean hands. If the government were to adopt reforms that reconfigure economy-wide incentives and trade and industrial policies, it could promote sustained growth, economic diversification and empowerment of poor people.

This paper addresses the role of market remoteness in explaining maize price volatility in Burkina Faso. A model of price formation is introduced to demonstrate formally that transport costs between urban and rural markets exacerbate maize price volatility. Empirical support is provided to the proposition by exploring an unusually rich data set of monthly maize price series across 28 markets over 2004-13. The methodology relies on an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model to investigate the statistical effect of road quality and distance from urban consumption centers on maize price volatility. The analysis finds that maize price volatility is greatest in remote markets. The results also show that maize-surplus markets and markets bordering Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Togo have experienced more volatile prices than maize-deficit and non-bordering markets. The findings suggest that enhancing road infrastructure would strengthen the links between rural markets and major consumption centers, thereby also stabilizing maize prices.

Landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) are completely dependent on their transit neighbors infrastructure and administrative procedures to transport their goods to port. This publication provides a comprehensive ten-year review in order to assess the progress made in improving access of LLDCs to global markets, identify the remaining challenges faced by LLDCs, and present improved and innovative ways to overcome them. This publication is based on the practical knowledge from implementing the Almaty Program policies, shared by both of our institutions. It provides a snapshot of the economic trends in LLDCs, with regard to trade costs, connectivity constraints and trade diversification. It reviews the key access policies in the Almaty Program of Action framework that include infrastructure, transport and logistics services, regional integration, trade and transit facilitation. It combines data and substantial feedback from implemented projects and policy changes. The focus of the document is general in scope and does not include detailed economic or policy analysis of all the potential components of reforms. The publication is organized as follows: Chapter1: Economics of Landlockedness; Chapter 2: Connectivity Constraints; Chapter 3: Hinterland Connections; Chapter 4: Transit and Trade Facilitation, Regional Integration; Chapter 5: Physical Connectivity, Corridors. This document is based primarily on the experience of project implementation by the World Bank, and on analytical work on trade corridors and LLDCs, including reports and presentations on progress in implementing the Almaty Program of Action.

Agriculture in Tanzania accounts for 28 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs 80 percent of its labor force. The sector is also an important source of export revenues. The data and findings presented in this report provide a summary of the performance of the agriculture sector in Tanzania using a set of indicators covering six areas. These are: 1) access to and availability of certified seed; 2) availability of and access to fertilizer; 3) access to farm machinery, particularly tractor hire services for land preparation; 4) access to agricultural and agro-enterprise finance; 5) the cost and efficiency of transporting agricultural commodities; and 6) measures of policy certainty and uncertainty as perceived by private investors and the effects these have on the enabling environment for producers and agribusinesses. The Agribusiness Indicators (ABI) team conducted interviews with Government agencies, private firms (fertilizer importers, seed companies, tractor importers and distributors, transporters), commercial banks, farmer-based organizations, donors, and Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The ABI program is pilot testing an initial set of indicators on the ease (or difficulty) of operating agribusinesses in African countries. The indicators are used to assess whether the countries have an enabling environment that is conducive to agribusiness investment, competitiveness, and ultimately agriculture-led growth.

With this Cameroon economic update, the World Bank is pursuing a program of short, crisp and frequent country economic reports. These economic updates provide an analysis of the trends and constraints in Cameroon's economic development. Each issue, produced bi-annually, provides an update of recent economic developments, as well as a special focus on a topical issue. The economic updates aim to share knowledge and stimulate debate among those interested in improving the economic management of Cameroon and unleashing its enormous potential. This fourth issue of the Cameroon economic update is entitled 'stepping out into the world a special focus on trade facilitation'. It reviews the challenges and opportunities related to trade facilitation in Cameroon. The coverage is not meant to be exhaustive, but puts an emphasis on particular areas that would require the country's sustained attention: a transformative trade facilitation agenda around which all stakeholders could be mobilized.

This chapter uses supply chain analysis (SCA) to identify transport and logistics bottlenecks that add costs, times and uncertainty to the exportation of perishable agricultural products from Central America. Macro-level analyses of logistics performance, including the logistics performance index, Doing Business Reports and Enterprise Surveys of the World Bank, as well as the Global Competitiveness Index of the Global Economic Forum, often leave policy-makers unclear on exactly what poor performance means for exporters and producers in Central America. How does poor road quality eat away at the profit margins of my country's producers? Extensive procedures add time to export processes, but how much time? How and to what extend does this additional time hurt the competitiveness of key industries? How does this effect vary by product type? By tracking the movement of seven carefully selected exports, these supply chains complement macro-level analyses by answering these questions for some of the region's key agricultural exports. A range of unique characteristics makes the success of perishable exports exceedingly dependent on the efficiency of the related logistics systems and the ability to connect effectively and reliably to global supply chains. Remote production zones add cost, time and variability to transport from the farm gate to the distribution, collection or processing center. Increasingly complicated international sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) add institutional and procedural complexity to the supply chain. Above all, the time sensitivity of most perishable products increases the value of time and makes cold chain infrastructure and the availability of refrigerated containers essential for successful exportation.

An efficient system to transport goods domestically and internationally is a key element of the logistics chain. Road freight transport has a direct impact on poverty as it employs millions of people and generates a significant portion of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, especially in low and middle-income countries. Trucking is the primary form of transportation for domestic, trans-border, and international cargo, in Central America. Road freight transport is now vital to production, distribution, and mobilization, driving economic, social, and environmental progress. In short, trucking is the backbone of economies around the world. In the past 20 years, the industry has advanced as technology has improved communication, management, productivity, including vehicle efficiency. Their objective in doing so is to expand markets, generate wealth on the basis of efficient specialization, introduce competition, and lower costs for production, distribution, services, and research and development. When road freight transport services are efficient, they support these objectives; when they are not they act as nontariff barriers to trade, creating delays, raising costs, worsening congestion and pollution. Such barriers prolong and destabilize delivery schedules, hinder 'just in time' inventory management and industrial processes, and impede the efficient combination of factors of production.

Thailand needs to avoid the high-carbon growth path of many developed countries and, instead, take a low-carbon growth path. A green low-carbon growth path is in Thailand's own interest as it can simultaneously tackle local environmental degradation, global climate change, and energy security challenges. It can also position Thailand as a regional leader in green, sustainable growth. Green low-carbon growth in Thailand could focus on the following four pillars: 1) maintaining rapid economic growth while adjusting the country's economic structure toward a less energy, and carbon-intensive economy; 2) achieving greater urbanization while shifting toward green livable low-carbon cities; 3) meeting the huge thirst for energy while transforming the energy sector toward one of high energy efficiency and widespread diffusion of low-carbon technologies; and 4) improving quality of life while shifting toward a resource-efficient and sustainable lifestyle.

Better access to improved infrastructure services is an important engine for economic growth. The poor state of infrastructure is a key bottleneck to growth in African countries, and Cameroon is no exception. Between 2000 and 2005, improvements in information and communication technologies boosted Cameroon's growth performance by 1.26 percentage points per capita, while deficient power infrastructure held growth back by 0.28 percentage points. If Cameroon could improve its infrastructure to the level of the middle-income countries of Africa, the growth effect could be on the order of 3.3 percentage points. Cameroon has made significant progress in many aspects of infrastructure. Across a broad range of sectors, the country has made serious efforts to implement institutional reforms with a view to attracting private sector investment. Private sector concessions have been awarded for the Port of Douala, the CAMRAIL railway, the national power utility, and the national water utility (CDE). These arrangements have generally led to performance improvements and attracted significant volumes of finance. Power supply remains expensive and unreliable. Cameroon needs to accelerate the development of some of its prime hydropower sites, which would greatly improve the domestic power situation and potentially allow Cameroon to play its natural role as hydropower exporter to the Central African Power Pool. Cameroon's information and communication technology (ICT) reform remains frozen at an early stage. The telecom incumbent, CAMTEL, remains state-owned and receives substantial public subsidy. The mobile sector is relatively uncompetitive, operating as a duopoly. Moreover, while Cameroon enjoys access to a submarine cable, CAMTEL's monopoly control over the international gateway has prevented consumers from benefiting.

Over the last decade, Kenya's society and economy have changed fundamentally and these deep trends will continue. Rapid population growth and urbanization will create many new challenges which need to be managed well to support Kenya's economic take-off in the medium-term. This fourth edition of the Kenya economic update argues that Kenya can turn the tide in turbulent times and make the most of the ongoing structural shifts. In 2011, Kenya will need to address short-term domestic and international shocks, including higher inflation, pressures on the exchange rate and, most importantly, a volatile political environment. The government will need to navigate through these shocks successfully and to continue with its economic reform program to achieve higher growth. At the same time, the government will be making major strategic decisions in Kenya's decentralization architecture which will shape the medium-term development prospects of the country. Economic success is possible, as the 5.6 percent growth in 2010 has shown. If growth will accelerate to an average of 6 percent this decade, Kenya will achieve middle income country status by 2019.

Nonfarm sector development in rural Ethiopia is central to generating employment and income and thereby reducing poverty. The improved investment climate could facilitate investments in farm and nonfarm sectors by contributing directly and indirectly to the generation of additional employment for women and men. Ethiopia Industrial Development Strategy 2003 involved efforts to create an enabling environment for the private sector to be a driving force for economic development. The sectoral focus of the strategy is on the development of agro-based industries and on strengthening nonfarm sector. The sustainable support system for rural women entrepreneurs is based on five main components: (i) women's economic empowerment, (ii) market development, (iii) access to markets, (iv) business management support services, and (v) access to credit. Necessary conditions to support nonfarm economic activities, such as physical market development, feeder roads, and transport, will also benefit agriculture and create a virtuous circle of increasing farm and nonfarm income. Women are more likely to be involved in and benefit from nonfarm enterprise activities. Although the system proposed could be targeted at men and women, women could be the main beneficiaries of the support system. This sustainable system is new and innovative in directly supporting the rural poor and women by building the capacity of entrepreneurs and supporting institutions linked to the existing projects. This system may derive maximum synergy effects by integrating with the Agricultural Growth Project (AGP) and the Household Assets Building Program (HABP) of the Productive Safety Nets Project (PSNP) in a complementary relationship.

Infrastructure contributed 1.3 percentage points to Burkina Faso's annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade, much of it due to improvements in information and communication technology (ICT). Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries (MICs) could boost annual growth by more than 3 percentage points per capita.Today, Burkina Faso's infrastructure indicators look relatively good when compared with other low-income countries (LICs) in Africa. Burkina Faso has made significant progress in developing its infrastructure in recent years. The rapid modernization of the ICT sector, around 60 percent of the population lives within range of a global system for mobile communications (GSM) cell-phone signal. The expansion of safe water and sanitation technologies in urban areas since the late 1990s and the establishment of a system for funding road maintenance (by reducing the cost of road travel) should pay long-term dividends to the economy. The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has gathered and analyzed extensive data on infrastructure across almost all African countries, including Burkina Faso. The results have been presented in reports covering different areas of infrastructure including ICT, irrigation, power, transport and water and sanitation and various policy areas, including investment needs, fiscal costs, and sector performance.

High volatility in the world prices of petroleum has been a characteristic feature of the global economy in the last decade. World petroleum prices increased four-fold between 2004 and 2008 and, and following a drop in prices in the second half of 2008, petroleum prices have been rising again, and they are several times higher than they were two decades ago. Since high and volatility of prices is likely to be a permanent feature of the global economy for the foreseeable future, they merit a reconsideration of the national transport and taxation policies that were put in place when fuel prices were not such a significant component of trade-related transactions costs in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. Transport practices that were based on the assumption of low price of fuel are not sustainable, and policies neglect fuel efficiency considerations through lowering the fuel consumption of vehicles measures are no longer sustainable. Efficient and low transport cost is essential to achieve regional economic integration and strengthen Africa's competitiveness in external markets. Higher diesel prices also impact on the prices of all other goods which use diesel as an intermediate input. The most significant among them with implications for the poor in low-income developing countries is food, on which the poor spend a disproportionately high share of their total household expenditures. This report is in three parts in the first part, transport fuel prices in the countries of SSA are compared with those of other regions of the world. The comparison is not only in terms of the actual retail prices but also, but taking account of per capita incomes and truck revenues, also in terms of affordability. This Part also provides evidence of the make-up of transport fuel prices in SSA countries, as a first step in assessing how they can be dealt with. The second part provides new evidence of the impact of these high fuel prices on the export competiveness of a sample of six SSA countries. It also provides a shorter description of the results of a study of the impact of fuel prices on logistics costs in Central America, since so far there have not been any studies of the impact of high transport fuel prices on logistics and food costs in SSA countries. The third part deals with the ways in which the impact of high transport fuel prices can be addressed. Two main areas of action are described, those that would reduce the retail price of transport fuel and those that would increase fuel efficiency, so they impact of high prices would be reduced. This section focuses on diesel fuel, as this is by far the most used by the trucks that transport export products and are involved in domestic logistics. This section concludes with some ideas on what could be done next to make progress on implementing the most promising ideas for reducing the impact of high transport fuel prices.

This Cameroon economic update, the World Bank is launching a program of short, crisp and more frequent country economic reports. These economic updates will analyze the trends and constraints in Cameroon's economic development. Each issue, produced bi-annually, will provide an update of recent economic developments as well as a special focus on a selected topical issue. The economic updates aim to share knowledge and stimulate debate among those interested in improving the economic management of Cameroon and unleashing its enormous potential. The notes thereby offer another voice on economic issues in Cameroon, and an additional platform for engagement, learning and change. The report's special focus on the telecommunication sector. Cameroon has been hit by the global economic and financial crisis over the past two years, as reflected in steep declines in the price and demand for its export commodities including oil, timber, rubber, cotton and aluminum. However, the upturn in the global economy and measures taken by the authorities to stimulate domestic production, preliminary indications suggest that economic activity is recovering. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2010 is estimated to have reached 3 percent on the back of stronger non-oil activities, which expanded by about 4 percent (particularly food crops, forestry, construction, transport, and telecoms). Data on private credit growth corroborate this assessment. Cameroon is a relatively small and mature oil producer, where oil production is declining. Depleting reserves, aging equipment, and more recently postponements of some development projects and investments because of the financial crisis explain this profile. The contribution of this sector to GDP growth has been mostly negative in recent years: oil production is estimated to have contracted by a further 16 percent in 2010 (to 23.2 million barrels).

This report reviews the status of Maghreb countries' economic integration with the world, with the Arab world, and within the Maghreb itself. It focuses on trade in goods and services, labor and capital flows, financial integration and cross-border infrastructure integration. It discusses the potential benefits of and key constraints to greater integration. The focus on trade liberalization with the European Union (EU) provides an opportunity for individual Maghreb countries to lock in policies that would eventually help them harmonize policies within their own region. The same argument can be made regarding accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Maghreb countries would reap significant additional benefits if, in parallel to reforms undertaken to improve trade liberalization with Europe, they improved conditions for streamlined trade among themselves. There is significant potential for trade in services in the financial sector, transportation and logistics, and communications and information, among other sectors. According to some studies, comprehensive services reforms that involve increased competition and regulatory streamlining would yield benefits that are at least twice the magnitude of those achieved through tariff removal alone.

Globalization has imposed entry requirements on developing economies. Countries need to have the ability to synchronize the business processes which take place within local producers with business processes, which take place in the supply chains of their suppliers and their customers. Integrated logistics services are nowadays a critical component of international freight transport systems, but their development and coverage vary widely across countries, in particular in the developing world. This paper explains this important development. It documents the increasingly important role, which third party logistics service providers play in facilitating business process connectivity and thus in integrating producers based in developing countries into the global economy. It provides a look at the global significance of integrated logistics services in a globalized economy, and goes on to review specific examples of establishment of such services in developing countries. These examples in turn suggest a set of specific policy recommendations to help policymakers enable the development of efficient logistics services to serve both their domestic and international markets. The paper describes ways in which integrated logistics services have evolved over the past 20 years. It describes aspects of that development, which have particular significance for accelerating the economic growth of developing economies. From a review of various means, which third party service providers have used to integrate the business processes of their clients into the supply chains of their clients, it attempts to develop some general principles, which can help policy makers to enhance the competitiveness of their own economies. In additional it discusses the interface between public and private sectors and particular ways in which public policy can enhance competitiveness through this important growth leverage. It goes on to discuss appropriate means and modes for regulating an emerging third party logistics industry and, finally, it suggesting specific initiatives and service design initiatives, which can help, accelerate economic development.

This report is concerned with the development of the infrastructure which is required in order to support proposed mines in Southern Mongolia. In order for the mines to be developed, it will be necessary to provide towns for the new inhabitants, road and rail links to provide supplies and to transport the mines' products to markets, and electricity for the mines' operations. Water resources need to be investigated and supplied to the mines and towns. And as all of the development advances, consideration needs to be given to mitigating any negative environmental and social impacts. The geographic focus of the report varies according to the particular topic. The mines are all located in a region which this report defines as 'Southern Mongolia', and which includes the images of Omnogovi, Dornogovi, Govisumber and Dundgovi. The majority of the important new mines are located in Omnogovi, and the analysis of housing and social impacts is concentrated in areas close to these mines. In terms of time, the report concentrates on the most important priorities for government action up to 2015. Nevertheless, consideration is given to a longer time-horizon when considering the potential environmental and water resource demands likely to arise as a result of the region's development. The report is not concerned with the longer-term actions required for broader economic development of the region, including the development of value-added industries associated with the mining industry. To get to long-term objectives, it is necessary to start with the short term. This report assumes that the Government will permit development of the mines in the near future.

This paper reviews the evidence about the effects of urbanization and cities on productivity and economic growth in developing countries using a consistent theoretical framework. Just like in developed economies, there is strong evidence that cities in developing countries bolster productive efficiency. Regarding whether cities promote self-sustained growth, the evidence is suggestive but ultimately inconclusive. These findings imply that the traditional agenda of aiming to raise within-city efficiency should be continued. Furthermore, reducing the obstacles to the reallocation of factors across cities is also desirable.

This is the first report presenting the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and indicators. It aims to shed light on how different countries are doing in the area of trade logistics, and what they can do to improve their performance. It is based on a worldwide survey of the global freight forwarders and express carriers who are the most active in international trade. LPI and its underlying indicators constitute a unique dataset to measure country performance across several dimensions of logistics and to benchmark that logistics performance against 150 countries. It provides the empirical basis to understand and compare differences in trade logistics as well as to inform policy with respect to difficult bottlenecks and tradeoffs. As a tool for policymakers, professionals, development agencies, and other stakeholders, it will directly support the fast-growing agenda for reforms and investments in trade and transport facilitation. The report provides some insights on the cost of poor logistics to country competitiveness and the sources of those higher costs. Beyond cost and time taken to deliver goods, the predictability and reliability of supply chains is increasingly important in a world of just-in-time production sharing. Costs related to hedging against uncertainty are significant. Equally, cost and quality of logistics are determined not just by infrastructure and the performance of public agencies, but also by the availability of quality and competitive private services. Moreover, in many developing countries, problems of adverse geography are compounded by a weak modern services sector due to poor institutions or over-regulation. The report closes with some practical insights, advocating a comprehensive, integrated approach to ensure that actions in one area are not rendered ineffective by bottlenecks in another.

We undertook this study to elucidate whether baseline peritoneal membrane transport characteristics are associated with high mortality in incident automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) patients. This retrospective study includes 117 patients who started APD at Yonsei University Health System from 1996 to 2008 and had a PET within 3 months of APD initiation. High transporters were significantly older and had a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease. Patient survival for years 1, 3, and 5 were 85%, 64%, and 35% for high transporter and 94%, 81%, and 68% for non-high transporter group (P