facilitation and logistics has the strongest potential to boost trade of any of the policy
measures (Hoekmann and Nicita, 2011) and World Economic Forum (2013) finds that
reducing supply chain barriers half way to global best practices could increase world
gross domestic product (GDP) by nearly 5 percent. Recent research shows that trade
facilitation initiatives – which include various types of improvements to trade logistics
processes – benefit all internationally linked firms, both small and large (Hoekman and
Shepherd, 2013). Saslavsky and Shepherd (2014) show that countries with better logistics
environments tend to specialize in the export of parts and components, which is one
indicator of increased participation in international value chains. This finding reflects the
fact that the value chain business model is unsustainable without a logistics sector that
can reliably ensure on-time and low-cost delivery