The idea of special economic zones is to match the needs of businesses with the developmental priorities of the country in a manner that fast tracks the whole process for the mutual benefit of companies, the state and the citizens. This is exactly why governments go all out to offer a wide range of carrots and all other forms of edible roots that help give strong foundations to the SEZs. Here is a quick run-down of the various kinds of carrots that SEZ across the world were awarded or recognised for in 2019 by the Financial Times’ FDI Magazine.
These SEZs are recognised for a wide of reasons. From workforce amenities, skills development, Red tape reduction and infrastructure upgrade to start-up culture, industry 4.0, and sustainability – global free or special economic zones clearly putting Pakistan’s SEZ to shame.
For example, the DMCC UAE was recognised for its thought leadership – with its reports, lectures, workshops and seminars on global intellectual agenda items such as the Future of Trade. Balti SEZ in Moldova was hailed for its supplier development programme that links local SMEs with multinational companies; and Rezekne SEZ in Latvia for ensuring the provision of well-educated and highly skilled talent pool in wide ranging subjects including science, technology, engineering, and economics.
Russia’s Alabuga SEZ has followed a similar project by offering training to manufacturing industry workers alongside programmes for continuous professional development of executives in transferable and leadership skills. And in Iran Arvand free zone he government is spending about half a million dollars to equip schools and education centres in the region in which the free zone exists, while India’s Ramanujan IT city SEZ has built a new convention centre that can accommodate 1500 people for training and conferences.
In Klaipeda free economic zone of Lithuania, flexible space initiatives have set up with plans to expand it further. These spaces are universal rentable manufacturing spaces to meet the needs of individual manufacturing, warehousing or retail clients in a short span of one or two months. It has also ensured dedicated bus routes to meet the needs of companies’ employees. Meanwhile, Jebel Ali SEZ of the UAE, which already has adequate infrastructure, is now investing in accommodation.
From the lens of sustainability, Mahindra World City in Jaipur has introduced recycled water to reduce water consumption and smart LED lights, whereas in the Dominican Repulic, the Corporation Zona Franca Santiago has set up rooftop solar power projects that provide 2 megawatt of clean energy for that SEZ.
Pilots of Safe Free Zones have also been developed at Dubai, Bogotá and Luxembourg free zones with focus on product traceability and records of user companies and their employees that can attract green, sustainable and ethical investments.
In terms of red tape reduction, the Lipetsk SEZ in Russia launched a new digitalised procedure for companies applying for tenancy reducing the processing time to just one day. But this is of course old news, as many other SEZ have also seen offering super-fast processing time to start your own company.
The real deal is the fact that global SEZ are now gearing up for the future. For instance, Lodz SEZ in Poland has attracted businesses on account of its 5G readiness; it has been running accelerator programmes with industry, academia, start-ups and administration to develop the first industrial used cases of 5G technology.
Likewise, Innopolis in Russia and Daegu Gyeonbuk free economic zone in South Korea are gearing up for industry 4.0 focussing on robotics, microelectronics, whereas Dominican Republic’s Las America Free zone is installing two-way fibre optic link and Mahindra World City in Chennai has developed an app dedicated for that SEZ, connecting companies and their employees to handyman services, cabs and other services.
And where is Pakistan at? In comparison to these trends in global SEZs, Pakistan’s SEZ’s appear to be zoned out.
Even after all nearly five years of marketing hype, promises and hopes, most of Pakistan’s special economic zones do not even have basic utilities of electricity and gas. Even Faisalabad SEZ’s where nearly 570 out of about 582 plots have been bought by businesses, there has been no construction (save for a handful of companies) due to lack of utilities.
Only more recently has the federal government decided to fund projects through PSDP to supply electricity and gas to some of these SEZ, and reportedly PC1 and funding of these projects are a few weeks away. But if Pakistan has to compete in the global SEZ space, it will have to offer far more than just basic utilities. The current pace of progress is promising.
Comments
Comments are closed.