Freight News, Logistics

High customs costs hinder developing world growth, warn DHL experts

[ October 15, 2010   //   Chris ]

Excess customs costs are making doing business in the emerging world unnecessarily expensive, says a DHL expert. Richard Owens, DHL Global Customer Solutions, Asia Pacific claims that almost 15% of supply chain costs are still related to customs and regulations procedures in Asia-Pacific, compared to only 3% in Europe. Easing the movement of goods and services would help  emerging countries achieve their development goals.

DHL also believes though that emerging markets need to rapidly upgrade their transport systems, speed up market liberalisation and free trade zone development.

Nevertheless, DHL sees much more potential in the emerging world than in the developed economies.  A dozen ‘hotspot’ economies in the developing world identified in the IMF World Economic Outlook published earlier this year are between them expected to achieve an average GDP growth of 7.2% in 2015, compared with only 2.1% for the G-7 nations and their combined GDP will also exceed that of the G-7 by this date.

Already, the global market share of the hotspots –  Mexico, Turkey, Russia, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Brazil – is 32%, only 9% below that of the G-7.

Tags: Logistics