Agility, a global logistics company with extensive expertise in emerging markets, in collaboration with the logistics research firm Transport Intelligence, released its “Agility Emerging Markets Logistics Index 2025” report in which it offers a quick insight, ranking, and evaluation of 50 emerging markets. The index is calculated based on 4 equally weighted metrics highlighted in the following section:

-       Domestic Logistics: assesses the size and growth of domestic logistics markets, the economy and of the population, income equality, urbanization and development of business clusters.

-       International Logistics: assesses the size and growth of international logistics markets and of logistics intensive trade, infrastructure quality and connectedness.

-       Business Fundamentals: assesses the regulatory environment, credit and debt dynamics, contract enforcement and anti-corruption frameworks, inflation and price stability, cost of crime & violence and market accessibility and domestic stability.

-       Digital Readiness: measures the potential and progress of an emerging market in becoming a digitally-led, skills rich, innovation oriented and sustainable economy in the future.

China topped the list of countries covered in the Logistics Index for yet another consecutive year with a score of 8.58, followed by India (score: 6.94), the United Arab Emirates (score: 6.31), Saudi Arabia (score: 6.08), and Malaysia (score: 6.04), only to name a few. The report commented that the index saw a very high volatility this year with the number of countries seeing a change in rank reaching its highest level ever on the back of a myriad of political, economic, social and technological factors.

Regionally, the Middle East and North Africa region’s performance in the index remained robust as 3 countries ranked among the top ten emerging economies in terms of logistics with Qatar completing the list, ranking 8^th with a score of 5.64. The report labeled the GCC as the “beacon of resilience” in the Middle East, thriving despite the geo-political instabilities, most notably the diversion of shipping from ports on the Red Sea.

On the local front, Lebanon came in 42^nd among the 50 covered nations in the 2025 Emerging Markets Logistics Index with a score of 4.37, in comparison with a score of 4.50 in 2024. In fact, Lebanon’s worst performance was in the Business Fundamentals sub-index (score: 3.72; rank: 39), yet fared better in Domestic Logistics Opportunities (score: 4.78; rank: 30), Digital Readiness (score: 4.39; rank: 42), and International Logistics (score: 4.26; rank: 48) sub-indices.