NFTC releases global supply chain benchmark study

The National Foreign Trade Council on Friday released a new study, Connecting the Dots: The Global Economy and Supply Chain Management, which explores emerging trends in global commerce.

Premised on the idea that the international community has shifted from a trading system primarily based on exporting and importing goods to a more integrated system of corporate supply chains spanning the globe, the study analyzes the trade and investment environments of 117 countries based on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank, among others. 

For corporations, globalization has come to mean breaking the supply chain into pieces and carefully assessing the profitability, viability and sustainability of each part in the process of making a decision on where to locate them, the study says.

Advances in technology and decreases in the time and cost of transportation and communication have accelerated the process, said National Foreign Trade Council President Bill Reinsch.

The report is structured as a country-by-country analysis of supply chain performance, with each country evaluated in comparison to benchmark nations and exemplars. The study evaluated countries based on a number of criteria, including national policies for openness in trade and markets, best practices for international trade, infrastructure for a global economy, financial services for cross-border commerce, human capital, and effective legal and enforcement systems.

The top 10 countries were Singapore, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Norway. The lowest scoring nations, most of which were African, were Angola, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Guinea, Mali, Venezuela, Algeria and Benin.

As an organization dedicated to an open, rules-based international trading system, and comprised of more than 300 member companies -- many with multinational operations -- it is critical to examine how countries are performing in this new environment, Reinsch said. We believe this study, which we will update periodically, will be a useful tool for our members as they consider future investment locations.

Source: American Shipper