National Efforts to Enhance Trade Support Services 
Although efforts to reduce constraints to the provision of trade services at the global level will help to reduce transaction costs and enhance trade competitiveness, many drivers of inefficient and costly trade support services are rooted in weaknesses and constraints within the context of developing countries’ national borders. Thus, developing countries seeking further integration into the global economy must take efforts at the national level to remove institutional, procedural and market impediments that impede the efficient provision of service as well as strengthen the overall capacity of trade support service providers operating within their borders. In doing so, countries will be able to reduce many of the bottlenecks and inefficiencies that lead to higher trade transaction costs. Ultimately, this involves placing a higher priority on trade facilitation and including trade support services initiatives in national development plans. 
Need for Country-Specific Analysis 
Prior to developing a national strategy to enhance the provision of trade support services, however, it is important to evaluate the particular conditions and market environment in which service providers operate. As noted throughout this paper, the costs of trade support services are highly variant by country, direction of trade, commodity shipped, mode of transport used, size of consignment and various other factors. Each country has its own bottlenecks, policy constraints, market failures, and levels of infrastructure and logistics development that affect the transaction costs of goods moving from its respective ports/airports/borders. For this reason, the analysis of the issues discussed in this paper are necessary at the national level in order to benchmark the competitiveness of trade support services in a specific developing country, to determine strengths that can be enhanced and to identify constraints that should be addressed. Such a study would include a constraints analysis covering various modes of transport, intermodal networks, infrastructure, customs practices and procedures, trade-related banking and financial practices, transport intermediaries, and the overall development of a country’s transport and logistics system. The results of this analysis could be used for the development of comprehensive competitiveness initiatives tailored to facilitate the development of more cost effective and efficient services to support trade competitiveness. 
Roadmap for Trade Support Services Analysis in Developing Countries 
Due to the complexity of international transport and logistics networks, the number of international players involved in a single transaction, and the number of points in the supply chain that can incur costs and delays, it is very difficult to benchmark the competitiveness of trade support services. The conditions of international transport and logistics are constantly evolving to meet the needs of new market demands. Couple that with new security concerns and the analysis of trade support services’ competitiveness benchmarks becomes even more daunting. Nevertheless, through investigating the right issues and asking the right questions, it is possible to develop a number of activities that will strengthen the trade support services sector.