In today’s world, economic climate changes more quickly, and countries realise that globalisation has made the world small and more competitive. Also, customers seek products and services that can respond to their specific needs, and firms make effort to create competitive advantages to keep their profit and market share. All of the above trends lead firms and countries to focus on efficient logistics system. In this context, almost all developed economies and a few emerging economies estimate national logistics cost on a regular basis to understand the efficiency of their logistics system. This article makes an attempt to survey the literature on logistics cost estimation with special emphasis from the perspective of a developing country like India where estimation is a challenge due to limitation of data. JEL Codes: D57, E23, P44

Globalisation has opened up economic opportunities for developing countries in the form of outflow of value-added services, low-cost raw materials , human resource skills, improved market access for their exports, efficiency gains in their economies through technology transfer and spill-over, and resource re-allocations. Consequently, various developing countries, including India, have increasingly begun to position themselves for greater participation in regional and global markets. It goes without saying that India needs to build its capacity for establishing linkages with global and regional markets for deriving the optimal benefits of engaging with the globalised world. This, in turn, depends on the creation of an efficient logistics system. For this purpose, most of the developed and emerging countries estimate logistics costs on a regular basis, and use performance indicators to measure the efficiency levels of logistics activities. Till now, no attempt has been made to estimate logistics cost of India by the official statistical organisation. Two estimate of logistics cost computed by private bodies are usually quoted when one refers to Indian estimate. However, the methodology of the two needs serious introspection. In this context, this paper makes an attempt to estimate logistics cost of India.

In today's world, economic climate changes more quickly, and countries realize that globalization has made the world smaller and more competitive. Also, customers seek products and services that can respond to their specific needs and firms make effort to create competitive advantages to keep their profit and market share. All of the above trends lead firms and countries to focus on efficient logistics system. In this context, almost all developed economies and a few emerging economies estimate national logistics cost on a regular basis to understand the efficiency of their logistics system. This paper makes an attempt to survey the literature on logistics cost estimation with special emphasis from the perspective of a developing country like India where estimation is a challenge due to limitation of data.

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The paper contributes to understanding the impact of opening up of imports of mining and manufacturing sectors on resource allocation across sectors of production. India is expected to leverage its comparative advantage in labour-intensive sectors of production when its mining and manufacturing sectors are opened up to external competition, along with its trading partners also lowering their tariff barriers. This study shows that trade liberalisation is expected to lead to positive outcomes by expanding sectors that produce manufactured goods in which the country has a comparative advantage due to its wage rate advantage. This does not mean that we are ignoring the importance of hi-tech, capital-intensive manufacturing sectors. The trade opportunities must be exploited through a well-chartered regional trade agreements route along with implementing the right domestic policy regime so as to leverage India's comparative advantage and economic growth along with rapid job creation.