12/08/2022
The lack of access to the sea is a major hindrance to development. Developing countries which struggle with an array of structural problems are particularly affected. However, being centrally positioned within a continent presents several opportunities too. Rwanda, for example, is to become a regional infrastructure and service hub in spite of being landlocked.
In 2015, a third of the countries that were ranked by the Human Development Index as having low human development were landlocked. These were the countries with the lowest life expectancies, education levels and per-capita income. On average, moreover, the economies of landlocked countries grow slower than those of countries with access to the sea. Mackellar et al. (2000) argue that being landlocked reduces a country’s average growth by 1.5 % annually.
Landlocked developing countries thus pay a high price for not having a sea port of their own. Their trade depends on ports of other countries. The worse transport links are, the higher the transaction costs rise. Moreover, many transit countries impose fees and road tolls that raise costs even further (Snow et al., 2003).
Poor infrastructure causes delays, and delays at borders are another major concern. Customs procedures, tax procedures and other bureaucratic procedures cause 75 % of all delays (Djankov et al., 2010). Such delays especially affect the trade of time-sensitive perishable goods such as agricultural products. On average, it takes landlocked developing countries 42 days to import and 37 days to export goods. Coastal developing countries need only half of the time (Torres, 2014).
Since landlocked countries highly depend on their neighbouring countries for transit, it is vital that the latter are politically stable and reasonably administrated. In case of conflict or instability, alternative routes to the sea must be found. That can be very costly, particularly if new railway or road infrastructure must be built.
A prominent example is the cons
