India’s logistic costs ranged between 7.8% and 8.9% during 2021-22, down from 8.7-9.9% during 2011-12, a report by economic think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), released on Thursday, said.
According to the report, ‘Logistic Cost in India: Assessment and Long-term Framework’, India’s logistics costs saw a dip during 2014-15 to 2016-17, from 8.3-9.4% to 7.8-8.8%, due to a faster growth in nominal GDP than in logistic costs, and a fall in fuel prices compared to the earlier period.
The national logistics policy will reduce the cost and enhance the competitiveness of Indian industry, said Rajesh Kumar Singh, DPIIT Secretary. He said that the government has released a national logistics policy to reduce the cost and enhance competitiveness of the Indian industry.
“The kind of investment that India is making in both physical and digital infrastructure….all that is creating an enabling environment where we will start getting good and credible data, based on which, we can do data-based planning and ultimately data-based policy-making as well,” Singh said.
He added that through the report, a framework is being developed which will be used to calculate credible logistics cost estimates.
The figures are calculated by NCAER on behalf of the government.
India’s National Logistics Policy was launched in September 2022 to reduce logistics costs in India. The latest report on logisticS costs is expected to help achieve the target of reducing the country’s logistics costs.
“This report recommends a hybrid approach using primary (covering all trade flows, product types, industry trends, OD pairs, etc.) and secondary survey data, as well as real-time Big Data to provide an estimate of logistics cost,” the ministry of commerce said in a statement.
