Harare – Four areas have so far been granted special economic zones (SEZ) status by the regulatory authorities as Zimbabwe seeks to increase economic activities and foreign exchange inflows says Zimbabwe Special Economic Zones Authority CEO, Mr Edwin Kondo.

This development follows as the Government is seeking to increase business activities in key strategic areas across the country.

A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a geographical region that has economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical or national laws. "Nationwide" laws may be suspended inside a special economic zone.

The category 'SEZ' covers, including Free Trade Zones (FTZ), Export Processing Zones (EPZ), Free Zones (FZ), Industrial parks or Industrial Estates (IE), Free Ports, Urban Enterprise Zones and others.

Usually the goal of a structure is to increase foreign direct investment by foreign investors, typically an international business or a multinational corporation (MNC).

“Four areas have so far been granted the special economic zones including Beitbridge that has been mandated with logistics and free trade, Victoria Falls specialising in tourism, Mutare concentrating in horticulture and Bulawayo focusing on the manufacturing sector,” said Kondo.

He noted that considerations for other areas within the country’s provinces are still being assessed in line with the policy of decentralising business activities across the country.

Official data shows that foreign direct investments in Zimbabwe have in the past few years been averaging US$ 500 million per year compared to other neighbouring countries or economies that have been attracting external projects averaging US$2.5 billion annually.

However, experts say if implemented in the rightful manner, special economic zones will also result in Zimbabwe increasing the level or rate of investments.

Although the advantages of creating SEZ outweigh the disadvantages it is good to consider that they will be revenue losses because of the various tax exemptions and incentives.

Also many traders are interested in SEZ, so that they can acquire at cheap rates and create a land bank for themselves and the number of units applying for setting up Export Oriented Units (EOU's) is not commensurate to the number of applications for setting up SEZ's leading to a belief that this project may not match up to expectations.

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