Sustainable Development and The Role of Free Zones

Developing countries encounter numerous insufficiencies and limits in achieving economic development. Meanwhile they possess specific facilities and preponderance. Free Zone acts as a tool which can relatively compensate the shortcomings and may turn the potential facilities and superiorities to abilities de facto on a national scale. It can also represent a bridge between internal and external economy. Accordingly, the main objectives of the Free Zone could be abridged as follows: • Supplying the shortages of national economic development. • Benefiting from the privileges, potentials and in general, the comparative advantages of national economy. • Establishing a regular connection between the national economy and the global economy • Gradual connection of the national economy to the global economy. In Free Zones, developing countries pursue more elaborate objectives for approaching economic development in the framework of the aforementioned general objectives.They anticipate achieving the internal demands of the national economy through applying those objectives desirably. Some of the elaborate objectives can be categorized as follows: • Absorbing foreign capital, specifically in productive segments. • Supplying more currency in order to satisfy the needs of the national economy. • Absorbing and transferring technology into the national economy • Entrepreneurial efforts in the Free Zone and the national economy • The escalation of the national economy efficiency Through the increase in non-oil production , the export development and the flexibility of the structure of an economy production, the ability of that specific economy in diminishing the perils of oil industry and other trades, which by nature results in the betterment of the trade conditions of a country, increases. Hence, when diversification occurs in an economy the rate of peril goes down and the efficiency of the country’s trade system escalates. In addition, the flexibility of the production pattern of an economy leads to the expansion of production potentials. These potentials are highly required in global markets in order to increase the production and income and in response to the probable changes of supply or demand parties.

Free Zone, Free Economy, Sustainable Development.