Pakistan with its population of 212 million is the fifth most populous country of the world. Pakistan spans over an area of 881,913 square kilometers that is approximately equal to the combined areas of France and UK. This big population spread over vast territory of Pakistan signifies the importance of an efficient logistics system to ensure availability of goods and services to all and sundry living across the country. This has made the logistics industry an important contributor to the overall economy of Pakistan. Logistics industry of Pakistan is about 23% of the service sector and provides approximately 6% of the total employment.

Due to the strategic location of Pakistan and transit trade, the logistics have pathway importance as well. China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has also added to the quantum of opportunities for the logistics sector. The Industrial Parks and Special Economic Zones of CPEC would add to and further strengthen the road infra structure facilitating the flow of the trucks from and to these SEZs. The country would also have to facilitate international transport by further improving and facilitating border crossings, airports and ports. These CPEC projects have improved business opportunities for warehousing and freight forwarding companies. Efficient logistics, especially international transportation, requires modern warehousing and upgradation of the ports.

Pakistan has a large logistics sector, which is valued at about US$35 billion and has a double-digit growth rate. Pakistan has given prime importance to developing hard infrastructure during the last two decades to facilitate the flow of goods and to ease access to the markets but still there is a long way to go. Pakistan is ranked at 95 among 167 countries on the aggregated Logistic Performance Index (LPI) in 2019. It puts Pakistan behind even some Asian countries due to relatively less spending on infrastructure projects including airports and highways.

Industrial sector in Pakistan have expanded significantly over the last two decades. As such, the logistics industry has also expanded to meet the demand of transporting goods made by this expanding industrial sector. To be more efficient the logistics sector needs to be more organized, and adopt 360-degree business approach to avoid operational losses. No one can deny the importance of support from the government agencies to acquire this goal. In Pakistan, we have roads extending over 264,000 kms that signifies the importance of trucking in facilitating the efficient flow of goods across the country and beyond its borders to the neighboring countries. The logistics sector is facing myriad of problems including tax structure, port infrastructure, warehousing, rising fuel costs, technology deterrence etc. These problems are the most obvious ones and have mostly been discussed and taken care of occasionally. However, the most serious problems are shortage of available options to our small and medium enterprises and the new startups. The logistics industry as a whole is totally fragmented, even sub division of the industry such as domestic and international courier, trucking, warehousing and air and sea freight are so disjointed that a small and / or new enterprise first finds it extremely difficult to source required service both for domestic or export purpose and is totally depended on MNC and local companies operating in this sector to ask for exorbitant prices. These are the most common problems having relatively less attention of the logistics sector.