Landlocked economies in a maritime world

Global trade may span oceans, but for the world’s 44 landlocked countries, it ends with a journey over someone else’s territory. Every container must pass through a neighboring country, placing access to international markets partly in the hands of foreign ports, customs authorities, and transport networks. While the distance is unavoidable, the time and money lost along the way are not.

Much of the penalty is incurred after the ocean voyage is already over. Across 23 landlocked developing economies tracked by the World Bank Group in 2024, an imported container took an average of 34 days from arrival at a coastal port to final clearance. Port dwell time, when cargo remained at the coastal port before continuing inland, accounted for 44 percent of that journey. By comparison, an imported container spent an average of just 7.9 days at the port of a coastal economy.

“Generally, landlocked countries incur higher trade logistics costs,” Tesfaye Belay Takele, a research fellow in logistics at Molde University College, told The Beiruter. 

They face higher costs related to inland transportation as well as higher costs related to port charges and other services.

Yet geography alone does not determine the size of that penalty. The efficiency of ports, borders, and transit routes can separate a journey measured in days from one measured in weeks.

The long way to market

Reaching a seaport can require crossing not only a border but much of the country on the other side. Takele and Eivind Tveter, an associate professor in logistics at Molde University College, calculated a median distance of 1,353 kilometers between the principal business city of a landlocked developing country and its most-used seaport, compared with 206 kilometers for coastal developing economies.

For some, the journey is several times longer. Their 2025 study puts the relevant seaport roughly 4,500 kilometers from Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. Using data from 2007 to 2014, the researchers found that importing a 20-foot container cost landlocked developing countries an average of $4,490, more than twice the coastal average, and took 50 days rather than 27.

Distance, however, does not account for all of those additional days. The World Bank Group’s 2025 Logistics Performance Indicators 2.0 tracks actual shipments across maritime, aviation and postal networks, making it possible to distinguish time spent in transit from time lost while cargo is stationary.

The differences among landlocked economies are considerable. In 2024, the full import journey took less than 10 days in Armenia and Azerbaijan, compared with more than 80 in Mongolia and nearly 90 in Niger, according to World Bank data. Yet more than a quarter of the countries studied moved transit cargo through coastal ports as quickly as those ports handled their own imports.

Unpredictability adds another cost. Longer and less reliable delivery times complicate inventory and production planning, while the LPI data find the greatest variation in shipment times when goods are stationary, particularly at ports and transshipment facilities.

Trading through someone else’s territory

Reaching the sea also leaves a landlocked economy dependent on decisions made beyond its jurisdiction. A government can improve its own roads and customs administration, but its trade may still rely on another country’s ports, infrastructure and border procedures. For some economies, that means relying overwhelmingly on a single corridor. 

Dependence, however, does not always mean the transit country holds all the leverage. The volume of trade at stake and the availability of other routes can alter the balance.

“The two factors that determine bargaining power for a landlocked country are economic importance and the number of alternative transit countries,” Takele said. 

Landlocked countries with higher trade volumes relative to their transit countries, and with more alternatives, will have greater bargaining power.

The number of neighboring countries can also overstate the choices available. Rwanda and Uganda have diversified their port access between Kenya and Tanzania, using both Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. Nepal, by contrast, borders both India and China but relies much more heavily on India for transit.

Having more borders therefore does not automatically produce cheaper access to the sea. Takele and Tveter found no statistically significant relationship between the number of potential transit countries and logistics costs. An alternative offers little leverage if it is too distant, insecure, or expensive to compete with the main route.

Making the border faster

Once a container reaches a coastal gateway, geography no longer explains why it should spend days waiting there. The World Bank Group’s shipment data show how much of the landlocked penalty accumulates while goods are stationary.

“Long import times are not explained by corridor distance but by the considerable time cargo spends idling at ports, at borders, and in checkpoints,” the World Bank Group told The Beiruter. 

The geography is only part of the story.

The World Bank identifies paper documentation, foreign-exchange rules, and inspections among the factors that can lengthen port stays, while customs and border procedures can slow the journey inland.

The potential savings are substantial. If transit cargo passed through coastal ports as quickly as imports destined for the coastal country itself, the World Bank Group estimates that total import time could fall by about one-fifth.

“For most countries, the main frictions are in trade facilitation and land-side logistics rather than port infrastructure,” the World Bank Group said. Infrastructure still matters where capacity is the constraint, but many delays instead require changes in how goods cross borders.

Because those journeys cross national borders, reducing delays often requires more than domestic reform. Transit rules can be harmonized, customs agencies can share information on vehicles and goods, and neighboring countries can coordinate border crossings and the management of major trade corridors.

“While geography is fixed, public policy can greatly influence how well a country is connected,” the World Bank Group said. 

Regional cooperation becomes an essential component of reducing the port dwell time for landlocked economies.

For landlocked countries, the 34-day journey to clear an imported container is therefore not simply the price of being far from the sea. Much of it is the price of reaching the sea through someone else’s ports, borders and territory, and of how well the countries along that route make the journey work.