7. Trade, Logistics & Competitiveness
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| Report/Index | Publisher | Frequency | What It Measures | India's Approx. Status (with year) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Logistics Performance Index (LPI) | World Bank | Periodic (roughly every 2 years; skipped some years including 2020–21 due to COVID) | Customs efficiency, infrastructure quality, ease of shipment arrangement, logistics competence, tracking/tracing, timeliness | India ranked 38th of 139 (LPI 2023) — up 6 places from the previous edition, and up 16 places from 54th in 2014 |
| World Trade Statistical Review / World Trade Report | WTO (World Trade Organization) | Annually | Global merchandise and services trade volumes and trends, by country and region | India tracked as one of the fastest-growing top-20 merchandise exporters, and a large and growing services exporter |
| Trade and Development Report | UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development) | Annually | Global trade, investment and development trends, with a Global South/developing-country lens | India frequently featured as a case study in South-South trade and digital-economy growth |
| FDI Confidence Index (also called "Where-to-Invest Index") | Kearney (global management-consulting firm) | Annually | Executives' forward-looking confidence in a country as an FDI destination over the next three years, from a survey of senior global-business leaders | India has remained a consistent top-10-to-mid-teens presence on the index in recent editions, valued for market size and reform momentum even as overall global investor confidence has fluctuated |
| Ease of Doing Business | (see Section 1 — discontinued 2021) | — | — | — |
Logistics Performance Index is the most-tested "infrastructure" index for India specifically because the Indian government's own PIB releases actively track and publicise it (unlike, say, the EPI, where India's rank is poor and less publicised) — India's steady climb from 54th (2014) to 38th (2023) is cited as direct evidence of the impact of the Gati Shakti National Master Plan and dedicated freight corridors, making the LPI a favourite "government schemes → measurable outcome" linkage question.
World Trade Statistical Review/World Trade Report vs Trade and Development Report is a same-subject, different-publisher pair worth a discriminating line: the WTO's own annual trade statistics compilation is produced by the body that administers global trade rules (so its focus is compliance-relevant volumes and tariff-and-agreement context), while UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report is produced by the body created specifically to advocate for developing countries within that trade system, and consequently frames the same broad global trade data through a Global South/development-outcomes lens rather than a rules-administration lens — the same "derive the publisher from its institutional mandate" trick from Section 00 applies directly here.
FDI Confidence Index vs World Investment Report vs Global Financial Centres Index is a three-way "India's investment story" confusion cluster worth resolving carefully: the FDI Confidence Index (Kearney) is a forward-looking sentiment survey of business executives — a perception-based product, in Section 0.5's terms; the World Investment Report (UNCTAD, Section 2) reports actual, already-recorded FDI flows and stock — a hard-statistics product; and the Global Financial Centres Index (Z/Yen, Section 4) ranks cities as financial-services hubs rather than countries as investment destinations at all. A question describing "a survey of global executives' confidence in investing in a country" can only be the Kearney index.