KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia was ranked the second best-performing Asean country in the World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2023, behind Singapore.
According to The World Bank's website, the LPI serves as a benchmarking tool to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics and what they can do to improve their performance.
The index is based on a worldwide survey of international logistics operators on the ground across 139 countries, as well as information on maritime shipping and container tracking, postal and air freight activities that was collected and made available to LPI by several data partners.
In a statement, Malaysia Productivity Corp (MPC) director general Datuk Abdul Latif Haji Abu Seman noted that Malaysia jumped 15 spots to No.26 on the index, a significant improvement from No.41 when the LPI report was last published in 2018, and No.32 in 2016.
The best showing by Malaysia in the index was No.25 in 2014.
Champion of Logistics Productivity Nexus (LPN) Datuk Seri Michael Tio added that Malaysia will be able to enter the Top 10 of the LPI ranking if it continues to benchmark Singapore.
"The LPI measures the ease of establishing reliable and timely supply chain connections and the structural factors that make it possible, such as the quality of logistics services, trade and transport-related infrastructure, and border controls," he said.
Tio said the logistics industry has much room for improvement to be the preferred logistics destination in Asean.
He added that Malaysia has comprehensive infrastructure for the logistics industry to thrive while having good connectivity via land, sea, and air.
"Institutional and regulatory mismatch, bottlenecks at borders, low-value chain activities, and insufficient and unskilled manpower still need to be addressed," he said.
