REFERENCE FRAMEWORK FOR DECISION-MAKING SUPPORT IN DEVELOPING TRANSIT TRADE CORRIDORS

Abstract

This research aims to investigate key critical factors for developing transit trade corridors (TTC) in optimizing trade and logistics performance, taking into account economic, geographic and political concerns among countries in the Northeast Asia region, which have been dynamically developing TTCs to optimize trade and logistics performance in association with development of transport infrastructure in the Greater Tumen Region located in the Northeast Asia This research explores key factors affecting the TTC through a comprehensive literature review in tandem with expert survey. Factor analysis, both exploratory and confirmatory, is employed to further investigate the underlying factors affecting more efficient development of a TTC. This research has drawn eight underlying factors affecting the design of a TTC: 1) development and policy implications (DPI), 2) safety, security and political concerns (SSPC), 3) environmental protection (EP), 4) financing and investment (FI), 5) soft infrastructure (SI), 6) hard infrastructure (HI), 7) geography and landscape (GL), and 8) corridor performance (CP). This research has geographical context of Northeast Asia subregion, which implies value of further research in the context of other subregions. In addition, since this research focused on identifying factors from policy-makers’ perspective, it would be also valuable to conduct further future research with a focus on other stakeholders’ perspective. There has not been any research done on factors to consider in developing TTCs in the world, whose consequence is no readily available reference that can support a systematic assessment and decision-making in development of TTCs. The findings of this research provides a helpful reference framework for policy-makers, potential users and developers of TTC to refer in planning and developing TTCs.