Transformations  in
Business & Economics

EVALUATION OF LOGISTICS DEVELOPMENT LEVEL IN COASTAL CITIES OF CHINA⁶
Zhu Zeng, Fengyu Lan, Xinyao Guo, Jiaqi Xu, Yikun Liu

ABSTRACT: The high-quality development of urban logistics is an important prerequisite to realize the high-quality construction of coastal cities. How to identify the factors affecting the development of urban logistics and scientifically evaluate the logistics development level in coastal cities is the focus of theoretical and practice fields. However, in existing studies on the evaluation of the comprehensive logistics development level in coastal cities, the logistics efficiency, performance and competitiveness have not been comprehensively considered. To explore the difference in logistics development level between coastal cities and further improve the efficiency of urban logistics, the scores of logistics efficiency, performance and competitiveness of each city were calculated by using the statistical data of 15 coastal cities in China in 2022 based on the urban logistics two-stage theory, and the comprehensive logistics development level in each coastal city was evaluated. Then, the influences of environmental variables on the logistics efficiency and comprehensive logistics development level of coastal cities were further analyzed. Results show that the logistics efficiency in coastal cities in China is not high and varies significantly. The comprehensive urban logistics development level is influenced by many factors, among which the economic factor plays a main role; among the coastal cities, the city with the highest comprehensive logistics development level has unique advantages in geographical location and economic development, accompanied by better efficiency, performance and competitiveness than other cities. Excluding environmental variables, the ranking of logistics efficiency and comprehensive development level of coastal cities has changed, which has a positive effect on cities such as Ningbo and Xiamen, but has a negative impact on Dalian. The conclusions provide new decision-making ideas and methods for further promoting the high-quality urban logistics development.

KEYWORDS:  coastal cities, logistics development level, factor analysis method, entropy weight method

JEL classification:  R12, R15, R58.

⁶Acknowledgments:  This study was supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Projects of Universities in Henan Province (No. 2023-ZZJH-022), the Training Program for Young Backbone Teachers in Colleges and Universities of Henan Province (No. 2024GGJS098) and the Research Project of Henan International Joint Laboratory of Man Machine Environment and Emergency Management (No. KFKT-003).