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Making Strategic Choices
At a Glance
- Key strategic choices can help foster SEZs’ success. Some of these decisions need to be made in the early planning stages and drafted into the policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks governing SEZs.
- There are many types of SEZs to choose from, and each has its own potential benefits. Options include free trade zones, export processing zones, enterprise zones, freeports, and single factory free trade zones.
- Local procurement in extractive industries can be fostered by different types of SEZs including supplier parks, offshore oil and gas servicing hubs, gas to power, and value-added logistics..
- Policy makers also need to determine the degree to which the government and the private sector will participate in the management and ownership of SEZs.
- The geographic location of an SEZ needs to be chosen carefully.
Case Studies
- Economic Security and Competitiveness: Using Special Economic Zones to Drive Job Creation in MENA (Kurt Dassel, Kim Eckermann)
- Industrial Cluster: Case for Special Economic Zones in Africa (Carol Newman, John Page)
- Institutional Best Practices for Special Economic Zones: An Application to Tanzania (Thomas Farole, Josaphat Kweka)
Key Resources
- Good Practice Note: Public Infrastructure and Mining (Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry)
- Institutional Best Practices for Special Economic Zones: An Application to Tanzania (Thomas Farole, Josaphat Kweka)
- Economic Security and Competitiveness: Using Special Economic Zones to Drive Job Creation in MENA (Kurt Dassel, Kim Eckermann)
Topic Briefing
If policy makers have decided that an SEZ is appropriate, they need to make a series of strategic choices to ensure the SEZ is equipped to meet forecasted needs and opportunities. Some of these decisions need to be made at an early stage and are thus best drafted into the policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks governing SEZs.