Where to find the quickest and most reliable customs formalities? The World Bank has got the answer! The World Bank has again evaluated border control and customs formalities of the individual countries. Criteria of the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) were the rapidity of processing, the reliability and predictability of regulations and of course the ease of handling for logistics service providers. This time, Germany attained the top spot in not only this subcategory, but also in the overall rankings. Singapore as the frontrunner of 2016 lost five places, dropping back to sixth. Spots number two and three are now occupied by Sweden and Japan. While Europa lately had prevalence within the top ten, the 2018 list is equally divided between five non-european and european countries. Switzerland, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom an Canada slipped from the current top ten, while Japan, Denmark, Australia and the United States moved up into the top tier. The LPI evaluates more than 160 countries worldwide and regularly examines how efficiently goods have been moved within and across national borders. This year the LPI values in high-income countries were on average 48 percent higher than those of low-income countries. Among the low- and middle-income countries, large economies such as India and Indonesia, as well as emerging economies such as Vietnam and the Ivory Coast occupy the top spots.
