Approaches, challenges and impacts of Asian regional multimodal logistics for supply chain integration and interdependencies

Asia’s successful economic growth over the past few decades is well known and is receiving increasing attention from current and potential trading partners. The region is home to some of the world’s largest emerging and dynamic economies, and this includes the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Along with this growth, there is a recognition that trade costs, along domestic and international supply chains in these Asian economies, can be significantly reduced by improving the logistics performance in each mode of transport involved in various logistics and supply chain transactions. These improvements may be conveniently facilitated by the optimisation of the transitioning strategies from unimodal to multimodal (or combined) transport services. In this context, we examine here the status of current multimodal logistics in the provision of supply chain integration and interdependencies practiced in the key Asian economies. For this chapter we have particularly focused on the current approaches, challenges and potential impacts of transforming and enhancing the levels of logistics and supply chain multimodal integration and interdependencies on the emerging economies of this region.