Special Economic Zones in the OIC Region:

Learning from Experience

Introduction and Background to the Study

1.1

Purpose of this Report

The objective of this report is to provide a comprehensive reference document to support policy

formulation, programme design and implementation of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) projects

within OIC member countries. It may also be used to guide member countries in the reforming

of existing SEZ projects.

This report serves as a database of experiences, lessons learnt and best practices in the process

of considering and deploying SEZs and provides an objective assessment of the effectiveness of

SEZs in the delivery of expected and achieved economic benefits, as well as their drawbacks and

limitations.

The objective of the study is to achieve the following:



To provide a resource document on OIC SEZs;



To explore the performance and economic impact of SEZs implementation in the OIC

Member Countries;



To learn from successful zones in non-OIC Member Countries; and



To provide policy options and guidelines for establishing successful SEZs within OIC

Member Countries.

1.2

Report Structure

The structure of this report corresponds to the following key stages set out below:



Section 2

: defines SEZs, including an overview of the dominant typologies, governance

structures, incentive regimes, infrastructure offerings and the economic and financial

objectives which underpin SEZ development;



Section 3

: explores the trends, experiences and factors of success and identifies the

challenges confronting non-performers across SEZs globally;



Section 4

: provides an overview of SEZ development within OIC Countries including

desktop analysis of the nature and performance of these SEZs. A process of comparative

and competitive benchmarking has been undertaken against a selected series of SEZs;



Section 5

: provides a detailed overview of SEZs in four OIC Member Countries and two

Non-OIC Countries through case study analysis of their performance and economic

impacts; and



Section 6

: provides conclusions and recommendations based on the findings of the

study analysis with particular focus on policy design and implementation in

determining the success and failure of SEZ projects.