Freezones urged to take in more global talents

Dubai / Emirates Business

Free zones of the past functioned as isolated economic clusters with little to no interaction with the local economy. In the highly digitized and innovative future, however, free zones will need to be more integrated and collaborative in their approach and open their doors to global talent, investments and technologies, according to experts on the concluding day of the World Free Zone Organization’s 2nd annual international conference and exhibition in Dubai.
The session highlighted the impact of Global Value Chains (GVC) on the free zones of the future, as well as the opportunities they presented for economic development. Moderated by Gary Gereffi, professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Center of Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness, Duke University, the session drew the participation of four panelists – GokhanAkinci, Global Product Leader at World Bank Group, Hernando José Gómez, Former Colombian Ambassador to WTO (Colombia), Martin Ibarra, Vice Chairman, World FZO (Colombia) and Przemyslaw Kowalski, Senior Trade Economist, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), France.
Discussing the way forward, Gereffi said: “There has been a tendency for developed countries to concentrate on higher value activities while developing countries are generally focused on the lower value activities.
“An ideal free zone of the future is one that will bundle together companies that bring value to each other and to the economy. We need best-in-class expertise to achieve a triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic upgrading. With the right training and collaboration, this can become a reality.”
Speaking on the topic, Hernando José Gómez said: “Global value chains are very demanding in terms of regulations – such as taxation procedure or pre-requisites to operate in – and in terms of infrastructure requirements. Free zones can address these issues through promotion of research and development (R&D). They can also incentivize and attract human capital, including academic experts and dedicate resources for skill development and superior ICT technologies. Policy-makers must use tools to measure advancement and growth within free zones, so that any gaps in the operations or demand may be identified and addressed proactively.”
Reinforcing this point, Przemyslaw Kowalski said: “Collecting and analyzing comparative data is a critical strategy to help free zone operators and business leadership working within them to plan for the future. It is also essential to have access to foreign inputs and cross-country knowledge, which are major contributors of competitiveness on the global level.”