During the decade of the 1980s a paradigm shift took place in the minds of economic policy makers; the movement in thought process was rooted in the idea that economic development must be led by having in place an export-oriented economy. This became a recipe of economic success for many countries of North East Asia and South East Asia.

Political leadership of East Asia adopted the strategy of promoting exports of their countries; notably the economic managers of South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore tasted the benefits of an export-led strategy.

The experience of these countries was replicated with resounding success by Hong Kong and People’s Republic of China.

The vehicle to achievement was based on creating Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

Special Economic Zones are designated areas where the government institutes business-friendly policies to attract both domestic and foreign investment. These Special Zones provide wide and comprehensive incentives to encourage and promote industrialisation, export diversification and an environment for economic growth.

In these designated Zones, emphasis is on promoting a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, logistics and services; local and international trade is given impetus.

The benefits to entrepreneurs are that the tax structure is built around incentives of tax holidays, reduced corporate taxes, VAT exemptions, duty-free import of machinery and raw materials. Through the SEZ access is available to usually state of the art facilities like industrial parks, ports and transportation networks. SEZs offer and create job opportunities.

The enlightened leadership of East Asia recognised the need to create exportable surpluses beyond the available. For this purpose policies were designed to attract investment in industries that were given attractive concessions to produce/manufacture goods and services, only for export purposes.

Malaysia was amongst the first countries to export Japanese brands that were manufactured locally. Sony TV sets were exported by Malaysia. This transformation of creating the ability to export goods of foreign origin, but produced locally gave an impressive momentum to economic growth via exports.

SZEs were in vogue earlier too, but Asian countries gave them a new meaning and dimension. The first SEZ were established in industrialised countries during the 1950s. These were designed to attract from MNCs capital and technology know-how. The first SEZ is believed to be in Shannon Airport in Clare County, Ireland.

The designation of an area as SEZ is to offer to overseas investors unique and different trade and business........

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