LESSONS IN SEZ IMPLEMENTATION: Stories from the trenches

Transcription

1 LESSONS IN SEZ IMPLEMENTATION: Stories from the trenches International Trade Department BBL Series World Bank, Washington DC, 14 March 2011 Speakers: Jean-Paul Gauthier: Deloitte / WEPZA Claude Baissac: Eunomix / WEPZA Angelica Bertoli Lawson: London & Regional (Panama) Discussant: Ganesh Rasagam: AFTFP 1

2 Pet peeves of a Zones Junkie: Behind the Data, Beyond the Toolkits and Templates Jean-Paul Gauthier, Esq., Deloitte Consulting LLP Dep. Secretary Gen., WEPZA

3 Jean-Paul s Pet Peeves Can you fix a small area in a big, messed-up country? Is just any Zone, anyplace enough? Should the Law come first? What does it really take to make a Zone a Special Economic Zone? Some controversial parting thoughts 3

4 Can you fix a small area in a big, messed-up country? Legally, zones are by nature porous with areas of shared jurisdiction Physically, zones Do not always have direct access/egress to trade infrastructure Are last mile tools, but require connections to transport and other public service grids Serve domestic as well as internal and external markets From a capacity perspective, zones are wholly a part of the larger country in which they are located as regards: Governance Corruption risk Zones work best in cohesive political systems (often, small countries) Zones are multiplier tools; Garbage in = Garbage out 4

5 Is just any Zone anyplace enough? Location, location, location and logistics Zones form part of an overall economic ecology, with established logistics infrastructure, patterns and options, distribution nodes, consumption/resource/labor markets, etc. In poor-infrastructure environments, the transaction costs of a 50km, 30km or even 15km additional movement can easily outweigh the benefits provided by new serviced plots Do not forget the white elephants (Tinapa, IDZs, Most Bangladeshi EPZs, Afghan IPs, Batam in terms of RoI ) 5

6 Should the Law come first? A zone s USP depends on the ranking of investment challenges: in the country in the broader region In Panama Pacifico, a successful Bank-assisted zone project, Labor Law was the No.1 investment constraint but powerful unions could politically at best be persuaded to test innovations in a small lab Elsewhere, the No.1 issue may not be an issue which the Law can fix (factor inputs, access, infrastructure, etc.) and the Law may be a guarantor of merely marginal change Laws & Regulations with proper ownership, that will get implemented, take a long time to prepare and pass Laws (and Master-plans!) should not be designed in a vacuum they are purpose-built tools for specific industries, specific companies, specific problems and should depend on a sound understanding of the business ecology 6

7 What does it really take to make a Zone a Special Economic Zone? I don t want a sorta special economic zone, I don t want a kinda special economic zone, I want a SPECIAL economic zone! Muntasser Okla, Former Head of the Jordan Investment Promotion Corporation (now JIB), Regarding plans for Aqaba SEZ circa

8 Jean-Paul s Check-List A business case (markets, products, effective demand): A there, there vs. build it and they will come A unique or inspirational vision, and excitement A long-term view by all stakeholders Willingness to get the planning right 10 years+ of reserves of patience Commitment to a participative, highly visible, national process Willingness to relentlessly go back again and again, and refight lost battles Clear, high-level political commitment to change at least a couple of (2+) things that rank at the top of investors concerns The right site maybe even the best site Money (infrastructure costs) Lobbying 8

9 Case study match-ups Panama Pacifico SEA Aqaba SEZ Dhaka EZ Tinapa Biz. Park Botswana Innovation Hub Biz. Case X Vision X L-T Commit X X High-level Commit Commit to 2+ Key Reforms? X X X Right Site X Pub. Money PPD/PR X How do Athi River SEZ, N Sele SEZ, Banjul J22 Gateway match up? 9

10 By the way You can have more than one Zone regime in certain circumstances The private sector cannot regulate and some Middle- Eastern public zones do pretty well Charter Cities are just a theoretical idea to get us thinking but imperialism is of course dead China s SEZs are not really SEZs as the term is used elsewhere If One-Stop-Shops are real, they are meaningful Smart tax incentives are revenue-generating TTLs should be neither too dogmatic nor too willing to please their client Governments 10

11 Acknowledgements to some of my Zones Junkies mentors Kishore Rao Keith Molkner Santosh Hejmadi John Arnold 11

12 The Purgatory of SEZ Project Initiation, Planning and Programming Claude Baissac, Eunomix Secretary General, WEPZA World Bank, Washington DC, 14 March 2011

13 Introductory statement Zones work: if they contribute only about 1 % of global employment, they contribute almost 20 % of exports In some countries (China, Korea, Mexico, Malaysia, Mauritius, etc.), they have been transformational However, our perspective on zones is fundamentally biased by the fact that the world is littered with failed zones and Africa notably We thus derive the mistaken lesson that, on the whole, zones have been an ambivalent policy tool to achieve static economic benefits and encourage broad reforms 13

14 Human error versus market forces Most zone projects fail to achieve their objectives Most of these failures are attributable to human error, versus market forces (in the latter case) Most of these human errors occur upstream, in the policy and programmatic phase of projects Most of these errors are a direct manifestation of broader political economic realities, and notably: 14

15 The political economy of success i. State autonomy from vested interests the ability to formulate and implement policies that are not aligned with vested interests ii. Catalytic policy leadership the presence of policy champions that have enough political clout to see a project through iii. Administrative capacity - the presence of bureaucracies to transform the policy into a project and deliver its implementation 15

16 The political economy of failure The implications of the above are sobering Indeed, there is ample evidence from the trenches and from data that zone projects are simply beyond the reach of countries that do not possess the necessary political economic attributes there is likely to be a strong correlation between state strength and zone success The notion that zones would represent an achievable policy options in states where everything else has failed is thus problematic 16

17 From Unknown Unknowns Yet, these factors have systematically been underestimated, both ex post and ex ante The emphasis has usually been on economic, site, regulatory and broad institutional fundamentals Most projects are designed as plug and play, ignorant of, and indifferent to crucial political economic factors that condition feasibility This undetected misdiagnosis, in more fragile states, introduces a great risk to project viability 17

18 (The paradox of private sector involvement) One of the ways to decrease project risk has been to bring in the private sector through PPPs But the private sector does not get involved until implementation, and, the state still needs to act as project initiator and create key project goods: I. Decision to launch SEZ programme II. Strategic planning III. Study phases IV. Regulatory and institutional phase V. Engagement with potential partners 18

19 (The paradox of private sector involvement) The private sector cannot, and should not, be charged with these tasks, for obvious reasons So, there is a bit of a paradox here: the private sector is expected to decrease the burden of the state, but cannot intervene if the state is too fragile. The state is to act as a catalyst, so the private sector can act as a catalyst, because the state cannot act as a catalyst for economic transformation in the first place 19

20 How do we decrease initial project risk? First, we need to recognise upfront, and properly document, the obstacles that will confront a project in strategy, design and implementation Second, we need to determine whether these obstacle can be addressed with a sufficient degree of confidence Third, we need to determine whether we have the will, lasting power, and capacity to assist 20

21 Deadly sins of early project support It is generally tempting to outsource all key deliverables to external agents consultants, donor experts, etc. to bypass critical weaknesses in government It is also tempting to concentrate key strategic capabilities outside of, and over-assist government. A typical way is to give figurative roles to oversight and technical committees. The real job is done outside Worse still, all key strategic decisions are made on behalf of government, usually through the careful pre-selection of strategic options that reduce the range of what is feasible 21

22 Deadly sins of early project support It is tempting, and reassuring, to follow a mechanical best practice approach to the sequential flow of phases and steps. This tends to mask the real issues that need to be addressed by the project, and removes contextual requirements. It also allows strategic decisions to be fed predigested to government It is also tempting to attach oversized importance to isolated symbols of progress, like the creation of an oversight committee, the selection of a site, or a law. Often this is done by external agents to consolidate support, and can backfire 22

23 Improving the odds If we are to assist, we must align our own indicators of success to the long term indicators of the project: we must align cycles to the medium and long term We must conduct upfront thorough political will and administrative capacity due diligences to identify the critical vulnerabilities and strengths that will condition success We must support the development of core capabilities within government to think, learn, decide, plan, execute. This requires patience on the part of the parties. Government will expect the usual 23

24 Improving the odds If government is not willing to go through this preparatory phase, we must consider the likelihood of success of the project as being extremely low, and probably withdraw support 24

25 Acknowledgements to my Zones Junkies mentors Richard Bolin Robert Haywood Peter Ryan Jim O Gara 25