Person:
Aritua, Bernard
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Transport logistics,
Infrastructure finance
Degrees
Departments
Global Practice on Transport, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Bernard Aritua is as a Senior Infrastructure and Logistics Specialist in the World Bank Group. He is responsible for Transport Sector coordination in China, Central Asia and Mongolia.
He has worked in the field of infrastructure investment and economic policy for more than 20 years. During this time, he has led and provided technical input on policy analysis, regulation, institutional reform, and technical design of major highways; railways; inland waterways; freight logistics; and multi-modal transport.
Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked in both the private and public sector in United Kingdom, Germany, Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East, and more recently in India and China. He is a Chartered Engineer with a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
Publication Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
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Publication
Unlocking the Potential of Freight Logistics in India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-12)New, comprehensive analysis of data on the current routing of goods in India have positioned the country to break through its freight transport gridlocks and logistics inefficiencies. With a growth rate of more than 7 percent since 2014, India is the fastest growing major economy in the world. But as a share of its GDP, its logistics costs for moving freight are as high as 14 percentpercent of GDP, markedly more than the 8–10 percent for most advanced economies. The gap arises from excess costs generated by inefficiencies in the transport system, greater costs of storage and inventory and procedural delays. Closing that gap would give a major boost to India’s growth prospects. Studies of logistics improvements in advanced economies have shown that, with sufficiently detailed data on freight flows, targeted interventions in specific corridors andsubsectors can enable transformational changes in freight logistics performance. Researchersand logistics experts from the World Bank and South Africa’s Stellenbosch University have assembled and modeled such data for India, identifying bottlenecks and opportunities for morestrategic investment and collocation of activities to achieve production synergies and lower thecosts of logistics and trade. -
Publication
Unlocking India's Logistics Potential: The Value of Disaggregated Macroscopic Freight Flow Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-02)India is one of the fastest growing major economies. However, at 14 percent of gross domestic product, its logistics costs are high relative to the 8 to 10 percent that is typical of most advanced economies. High logistics costs and poor logistics performance impact the competitiveness of the economy on multiple levels: (1) firms deliver less competitive goods and services; (2) consumers pay more than peers for goods; and (3) the cost of achieving improvements in gross domestic product is excessive. The development of a national transport and logistics network to facilitate competitiveness and sustainable development and uplift rural regions will play an increasingly important role in shaping spatial organization in emerging economies. An element that is absent, yet critically important for national logistics issues in emerging economies, is sufficiently detailed freight-flow analysis to facilitate targeted infrastructure investments and enable transformational change to improve national logistics performance. This paper presents the results of a disaggregated macroscopic freight demand analysis developed for India through a hybrid approach, calibrating the modeled input-output matrix and resulting freight flows with data where available. Data was obtained from multiple sources, such as agricultural statistics, national enterprise surveys, a financial performance database of Indian companies, population statistics, and transportation statistics from rail, inland waterways transport, highways, and ports. The model provides evidence for decision making on several levels. Aggregating freight flows enables planners to identify gaps in critical infrastructure and logistics chains. Disaggregated flows support decisions on the location of logistics clusters, maximizing the potential of multimodal transport systems, and designing the distribution and storage networks that underpin the economy. -
Publication
Developing China’s Ports: How the Gateways to Economic Prosperity Were Revived
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-05-17)Many countries in Africa and Asia have coastlines that present opportunities for them to become gateways for trade between the hinterlands and global trading routes. However, policy makers struggle to translate this potential into engines of economic development and social transformation. In the past 40 years, China has taken advantage of its strategic geographical location and its status as one of the world’s top manufacturing regions. From a very low position on almost all metrics, today China has become home to more than half of the world’s top 50 ports. The rapid development of China’s ports was critical for the country’s remarkable economic growth. What China achieved can be informative; how and why China revived and modernized its port sector is especially relevant and provides valuable lessons for other countries. This book explores the transformation of China’s port sector through four topics and four periods, beginning with China’s major economic reforms that started in 1978. The first topic addresses the links between China’s macroeconomic and regional development strategies and development of the port sector. During this period—through about 1991—China began decentralizing port management to facilitate development of special economic zones. The second topic—during the period 1992 through about 2001—is more specific about the ports and analyzes changes in port governance, including the way in which essential investments were determined and financed. The third topic examines the relationship of ports to the cities where they are located and to the hinterlands on which they depend—coinciding with the period 2002–11. Domestic and international investment resulted in many new export-oriented processing factories during this period. The accompanying boost in trade required further expansion of port capacity. The fourth topic addresses how—from 2011 onward—human resource and innovation policies in the port sector have responded to changing demands as the country looks to become a less resource-dependent and more regionally balanced economy.