Freeports-what-are-they-what-do-we-know-and-what-will-we-know

© The Institute for Fiscal Studies, March 2023 7 Freeports: what are they, what do we know, and what will we know? Key findings on the Freeports programme and the scope for evaluating it The economics of the Freeports programme 1 The core of the Freeports programme is the location-specific and time-limited tax incentives and other benefits that it provides. [...] For this approach to reliably estimate the causal impact of the Freeports programme, we have to assume that the trends in the control areas are a good indicator of what would have happened in the Freeport areas in the absence of the programme. [...] Section 3 reviews the economics of the Freeports programme, setting out the aims and potential drawbacks of the policy and assessing what we can learn about its likely effects from the available evidence on other similar policies that have been implemented in the UK and elsewhere in the world. [...] This limited benefit, alongside some unspecified concerns related to adherence to the customs rules in the Freeports, led to their abolition in 2012.3 The second way the new Freeports differ from the former ones (and indeed other SEZs in the UK, such as enterprise zones) is the extent to which the government and Freeports have been planning the sectors and types of activities that each port will t. [...] It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which the activities being undertaken at the Freeports are additional, rather than things that would have taken place even in the absence of the policy (either in the Freeport or elsewhere in the UK).