Abstract
I tried to compare the logistics costs ratio (ratio to sales and composition ratio) on an international base in these big countries, Japan, U.S.A. and U.K. I compared this, due to the fact that the price difference between Japan and foreign countries have become serious social problem in recent years.
In Japan, the questionnaire-surveys have been made as Micro survey by the sponsorship of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry since 1965, and occasionally as Macro survey, through Inter-industry Relations Table.
In U.S.A., consulting corporation, H.W. Davis has been publishing the survey results on logistics costs on annual base since 1977. Then in U.K., the Center of Physical Distribution Management of the British Institute of Management (the name was changed to the Institute of Physical Distribution Management in 1986, and then again changed to the Institute of Logistics and Distribution Management in 1987), published the survey results on logistics costs annually from 1984 to 1992. I collected the above mentioned survey reports from each country and analyzed their annual trends. I should avoid to jump my conclusion on the degree of logistics costs level in each country by the degree of logistics costs to sales as the covered corporation, scope of logistics costs and dispersion of replied corporations are widely different. However, despite that, I shall be able to detect the level of logistics innovation and/or logistics effectiveness in each country by their trend.
