A methodology to evaluate transit corridors from a trade logistics management perspective is proposed. The approach is based on the authors' extensive experience with transit corridors throughout the world and, more recently, on a major effort recently completed by the World Bank to study transit corridors linking landlocked countries(LLCs) to the sea in West Africa. The need to quantify the overall benefits and costs to each of the countries involved is suggested taking into account factors that, at first sight, may not seem directly related to the actual flow of goods but that are perceived by bothshippers and freight forwarders to be major determinants in the choice of one corridor over another. Such exogenous factors include butare not limited to the trucking allocation agreements (e.g. the one-third/two-thirds rule) between LLCs and transit countries, the maritime shipping codes (e.g. the UNCTAD 40/40/20 Code of Conduct), customs procedures, freight forwarding fees, and storage policies. Proper quantification of net benefits or costs for each of the countries involved in the transit movement is probably the first step for serious negotiations of transit policies, customs, and trade facilitation procedures between the governments involved. The periodic estimation of those benefits and costs may also serve as a deterrent to unilateral decisions by customs and transport ministries to alter facilitation procedures without proper assessment of the economic and financial impact of those changes on their countries and their importersor exporters.
Abstract