Freeports and how to get them right

In this week’s podcast Guy Foster talks to Dr Eamonn Butler, the long-time advocate of freeports and member of the government’s Freeport Advisory Panel.

Freeports may have been the most exciting part of this week’s budget but it all depends upon how wholeheartedly the Government embraces the concept. Dr Butler has followed past failed attempts to employ the freeport concept and can explain what went wrong.

We ask him what the government should be doing to make freeports work? What kind of tax benefits should freeports bestow? How will they help the broader economy? And does the new working environment, with less emphasis on physical proximity, make it easier for freeports to regenerate some of the areas which have lagged the broader national economic progress?