Global Development Solutions provided assistance in formulating a trade facilitation and competitiveness strategy for the Government of India. GDS designed and developed a framework to support Northeast India to increase productivity, access new regional and extra-regional markets, and develop growth opportunities for the region’s private sector. The final outcome of the project was an investment fund in excess of USD200 million to support the region’s private sector.

For example, in the case of bamboo – a promising sector in terms of resource availability and export growth potential – trade and investment were hampered by a range of issues including:

• High cost of transportation due to numerous internal checkpoints administered by rent-seeking officials and poor roads, as well as trade-inhibiting regulatory regimes among northeastern states (click here to see).
• Yields ranging from one-half to two tons per hectare whereas average yields in China are 25 to 27 tons per hectare. Stimulation of India's bamboo plantations is expected to improve yields and to increase varieties to better accommodate demand.
• As high as 80% processing waste in manufacturing bamboo sticks and parquet flooring was directly correlated to poor expertise of processors unaided by technical extension support.

Global Development Solutions identified key issues and provided detailed channel mapping of critical competitiveness inhibitors in the cotton-to-garment, dairy, and automotive parts industries, as well as in the marble (mining and processing), shrimp and apple processing sectors. In the jeans manufacturing sector, for example, insufficient in-house design capabilities and lack of skilled workers to implement new manufacturing techniques were hindering the sector’s ability to move up-market to higher value-added jeans. The lack of training and skills adversely affected productivity levels of the small and medium scale jeans makers.

Other issues identified were:

• Production losses: Excessive production losses (e.g. up to 20% in the dairy sector due to improper chilling).
• Water: Poor water quality is responsible for a significant portion of wastage in the shrimp and dairy sectors.
• Training, skills and knowledge: Inadequate investment in labor skills is a recurring issue in all sectors studied.
• Debilitating duty valuations: Government fees, including duties and other import charges, increase the cost of importing raw material by 7.6% in some segments of the automotive value chain.

For Papua New Guinea, Global Development Solutions constructed a dynamic simulation that opened up new avenues for the government and private sector to formulate a sector-wide strategy to improve efficiency and competitiveness of the agriculture sector in both the local and regional markets. The simulation allowed policy makers and stakeholders along the entire farm-to-fork value chain to understand the impact of change at any point in the supply chain. For example, if the price of seed increases by 2%, the impact of this price change will show at every step of the way – from farmer income to market. “What if” scenarios can be generated to understand the interdependency of multiple variables such as margins, input costs, transportation costs, etc. along the farm-to-market supply chain.

A channel mapping exercise was conducted for six distinct products/commodities: rice, garments, cotton/textiles, motorcycles, tobacco and canned milk. In addition to channel mapping, a customs clearance roadmap showing the complexity of the existing customs clearance procedure was also presented. Furthermore, taking into account the focus placed on determining the impact of high administrative costs associated with conducting business in Cambodia, an itemized list of undocumented fees imposed on enterprises operating in Cambodia was compiled.