India likely to have its own index to estimate logistics cost

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), an autonomous body under the ministry of commerce and industry is developing a sector-specific index to monitor logistics cost in key export sectors. The idea of the exercise is to develop sector-specific indices to estimate the logistics costs and bring them down to 10 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) from 14 per cent at present as they are higher than those in developed countries.The index that will be released early next year helps estimate the logistics cost in top nine export sectors including agriculture, leather, apparel and, gems and jewellery. Manoj Pant, Director, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), informs, “Internationally, no one has made sector-specific indices to estimate logistics costs.