Special Economic Zones: An Overview

A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a geographical region that has economic laws that are more liberal than a country’s typical economic laws. The category ‘SEZ’ covers a broad range of more specific zone types, including Free Trade Zones (FTZ) Export Processing Zones (EPZ) Free Zones (FZ) Industrial Estates (IE), Free Ports, and other. Usually the goal of an SEZ is to increase foreign investment. Special economic zones (SEZs) as conceived by the government will be a powerful instrument to achieve rapid growth in manufacturing, employment and exports. Investments so for in SEZs, in India is around $700 million and within five years this is expected to grow to $306 billion. Over five lakh additional employment would be created with in SEZs and 15 lakh jobs out side, while the additional employment in the construction stage is expected to be 2.56 million man days. Therefore this paper examines an overviews of Special Economic Zones in India.