Special economic zones: Nigeria's gateway to boosting exports
Special Economic Zones

Key questions this article answers:

  1. Asian countries like China and Malaysia have improved exports with Special Economic Zones (SEZs). How do they work?

  2. In Nigeria, SEZs started in 1992, but why are our exports not diversified and earnings still low?


On Monday, Stears hinted at how Special Economic Zones (SEZs) helped China achieve a diversified export base through Foreign direct investments (FDIs). After creating SEZs in 1984, FDI in China grew by 132x to $171.5 billion in 2008 from $1.3 billion in 1984. 

Other success stories with SEZs exist in Asia, Latin America and Africa. But Nigeria has had SEZs since 1992 with the establishment of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Decree, yet we haven’t recorded much success.

Why is this happening? And what can be done to solve the problem? These are the questions this article will answer.

First, we’ll unpack what SEZs are, then explore the issues with

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Dumebi Oluwole

Dumebi Oluwole

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