What is measured?

Figure 1. What makes up the time and cost to export to an overseas trading partner?

Source: Doing Business database.

Figure 2. What makes up the time and cost to export to a regional trading partner?

Source: Doing Business database.

Doing Business records the time and cost associated with the logistical process of exporting and importing goods. Doing Business measures the time and cost (excluding tariffs) associated with three sets of procedures—documentary compliance, border compliance and domestic transport—within the overall process of exporting or importing a ship­ment of goods. Figure 1, using the example of Brazil (as exporter) and China (as importer), shows the process of exporting a shipment from a warehouse in the origin economy to a warehouse in an overseas trading partner through a port. Figure 2, using the example of Kenya (as exporter) and Uganda (as importer), shows the process of exporting a shipment from a warehouse in the origin economy to a warehouse in a regional trading partner through a land border.

The ranking of economies on the ease of trading across borders is determined by sorting their scores for trading across borders. These scores are the simple average of the scores for the time and cost for documentary compli­ance and border compliance to export and import.

Although Doing Business collects and publishes data on the time and cost for domestic transport, it does not use these data in calculating the score for trading across borders or the ranking on the ease of trading across borders. The main reason for this is that the time and cost for domestic transport are affected by many external factors—such as the geography and topography of the transit territory, road capacity and general infrastructure, proximity to the nearest port or border, and the location of warehouses where the traded goods are stored—and so are not directly influenced by an economy’s trade policies and reforms.

The data on trading across borders are gathered through a questionnaire administered to local freight forwarders, customs brokers, port authorities and traders.

If an economy has no formal, large-scale, private sector cross-border trade taking place as a result of government restric­tions, armed conflict or a natural disaster, it is considered a “no practice” economy. A “no practice” economy receives a score of 0 for all the trading across borders indicators.