Improving Governance and Tackling Crime in Free-Trade Zones

Anton Moiseienko, Alexandria Reid, Isabella Chase, 'Improving Governance and Tackling Crime in Free-Trade Zones’, RUSI Occasional Paper, October 2020.

Free trade zones are a curious thing: the Financial Action Task Force has called them a money laundering and terror financing threat; the World Customs Organization consistently calls out their role in illicit trade; and in 2019, the European Parliament called for the urgent phasing out of freeports in the EU...

But many countries - including the UK and China in 2020 - are determined to keep establishing new ones. FTZs are clearly here to stay.

Based on case studies in Morocco, Singapore, Panama and the UAE, this paper outlines a new framework for evaluating the ‘riskiness’ of an FTZ, to be followed by a practical manual in 2021.

Free-trade zones (FTZs) are designed to attract trade by suspending the collection of customs duties. These incentives are frequently coupled with advantages such as simplified customs inspection procedures, liberalised incorporation regimes and physical infrastructure superior to that available elsewhere in the same country. Access the PDF here.