Special Summit Meeting

International Law on Incentives, Benefits, Competition and State Aids

World Free Zone Convention has called for a Summit Meeting of all free zone and industrial park authorities and operators to be held in London in early December. The programme will also be of interest to investment promotion agencies and regional authorities.

A key feature of the conference will be the opportunity to examine various options for creating legal protections to facilitate the work of Enterprise Zones. This will include a post-Cancun response to the WTO and will include a proposal for a new legal text to be included in the WTO regime. Full details from the organisers info@freezones.org or call +44 207 839 1334

First for Tanzania

Tanzania has opened its first export processing zone, following the Export Processing Zones Act that was passed by the National Assembly in 2002.

The $10m project, named the Millennium Business Park, was officially opened in June 2003. Located just outside Dar es Salaam town centre, the 20-acre complex will cater for light industrial manufacturing, warehousing and storage, showrooms and offices.

The National Development Corporation (NDC) has been exclusively mandated by the government of the United Republic of Tanzania to initiate the development and regulate export processing zones and free ports in Tanzania.

Contitrades Limited, a UK-based developer that has formed the Tanzanian company Business Park Limited, told Business Times that the EPZ has so far attracted interest from Sri Lanka, the US, the UK, India, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Singapore, Taiwan, Canada, South Korea, China and locally. More information at: www.tic.co.tz.

Source: IPAWorld

The SARS effect

According to a press release from Colon, Panama, imports to the free zone fell by 22%, compared with the previous year, to $226.1m dollars. President of the Zone Users Association, Digna Donado, said that fear of SARS had prevented companies from travelling to Asia during the crisis, precisely to the area which generates a large proportion of the zone’s business. Ms Donado expects that re-exports will begin to recover their momentum from August of this year to a high point during the months of October and November.

Conference dates

VII Conference of the Comite de Zonas Francas de las Americas will be held on September 16-19 in Monterrey, Mexico

info@mexicozonasfrancas.com

Cancun watching

‘Ever since WTO ministerials were introduced as a regular gathering of the trade policy community, the question has been raised with haunting regularity: will the next WTO Ministerial Conference (in September) be a success or a failure?’ See more information on the OECD website www.oecdobserver.org/story.php/eid/127/aid/998

WFZC 2003 website awards

Three organisations stood out from the rest in this year’s annual awards and the combined votes of the chairmen of the two days of the international conference produced Joint Winners of Category One (Free Zone):

East London Development Zone Corporation, South Africa, www.elidz.co.za

Consortium of the Free Zone of Gran Canaria, Spain,

www.zonafranca.org

In Category Two (all other entities represented at the convention) there was a clear winner:

Export Processing Zones Authority, Kenya, www.epzakenya.com

Francoise Lemagnen, director of sponsors IPAWorld, presented the prizes. The three winners each receive a year’s subscription to the Oxford Intelligence news service www.IPAWorld.com.

Full information, including details of the runners up, can be seen on the WFZC website www.freezones.org.

Sue Wake