The plot

Why the trucking industry is so important to the nation.

Trucks are goods carriers, and account for around 87% of sales in the Indian MHCV market. Buses are passenger carriers, accounting for 13% of MHCVs. In the LCV segment, while goods carriers account for over 84% of domestic sales, passenger carriers account for 16% 1.

The logistics business in India holds immense potential. Transport Intelligence has launched its Emerging Market Logistics Index, which ranks 38 countries from the developing world in terms of the attractiveness of their logistics markets to foreign investors. It measures the scale of opportunities by way of three key indices: ‘Market size and growth attractiveness’; ‘Market compatibility’; and ‘Connectedness’.

India (1) claimed the top spot of the overall rankings, scoring particularly highly in terms of market size and growth prospects. Brazil (2) took second place, helped not only by its economic performance but also by good levels of market accessibility and improving domestic and international transport connections. Indonesia (3) also scored well with Mexico (4) and Russia (5) making up the top five logistics markets 2.

China and India are the top two over-performers among developing economies in improving their capacity to efficiently move goods and connect manufacturers and consumers with international markets, according to a new World Bank Group survey.

India is also rated as the best performer from South Asia though overall it’s listed 47th among the 155 economies ranked in the Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI), included in the report “Connecting to Compete 2010: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy” 3.

Germany is rated as the top performer in the study based on what the Bank said was the most comprehensive world survey of international freight forwarders and express carriers.

The report, headed by World Bank Group economists Jean Francois Arvis and Monica Alina Mustra, notes that among developing economies logistics performance transcends the level of per capita income: Many countries perform better than what their income level would suggest.

The ten most significant over-performers include China (27), India (47), Uganda (66), Vietnam (53), Thailand (35), the Philippines (44), and South Africa (28).

India scored an overall Logistics Performance Index (LPI) of 3.12 in 2010, a significant improvement over 3.07 in 2007. This was largely driven by improvements in indicators such as ease and affordability of processing international shipments, track and trace capability, and timeliness.