Tempo de leitura: 3 minutos<\/small><\/p> \n
The UK\u2019s Labour government came to power in July 2024 promising change. Onlookers have been surprised at their decision to maintain some policies championed by their Conservative predecessors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One example is the UK\u2019s special economic zones \u2014 freeports, investment zones and enterprise zones \u2014 which have been criticised for not delivering their target investment and jobs. Various SEZs have been set up by successive governments in a piecemeal way without a broader vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of an action plan released in June, the UK plans to consolidate the governance of the \u201ccomplex landscape\u201d of zones<\/a> and align them with its newly minted national industrial strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Norris, the UK\u2019s under-secretary of housing, communities and local government who oversees the SEZ<\/a> and local growth programme, is driving this action plan. He speaks to fDi<\/strong> about how the new \u2018industrial strategy zone\u2019 action plan will work with devolution and local growth plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: Why did you continue with an SEZ policy despite limited success?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our theory of change is a little bit different to the one we\u2019ve inherited. You\u2019ve got a national industrial strategy about our future economic strengths that connects all the way down to local communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Local leaders made an assessment of how to be part of this national success story. Having these designated SEZ sites in their area was a way of harnessing their individual regional strengths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Norris, UK under-secretary of housing, communities and local government<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of these things are a magic silver bullet. But they are an important tool for areas through their local growth plans to change the economic outlook of their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: How will you implement the UK\u2019s industrial strategy zone plan?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest determinant for success in any given part of the UK is alignment. In terms of devolution, we\u2019ve inherited an asymmetric settlement across the UK, where it looks different in different places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alongside this, you have this important programme of multi-faceted SEZs, which themselves don\u2019t align fully with the geographies of local authorities. We\u2019re not going to be able to change or reimagine those boundaries overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re trying to find the right pragmatic ways to have governance alignment. The priority is to make sure that the zones all serve the same regional economic goals. If they do that, that gives them a chance to succeed. If they don\u2019t do that, that\u2019s the failure risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: Will AI growth zones play a part in future of UK SEZs?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is tremendous interest in the AI growth zone programme. It\u2019s on the top of everyone\u2019s agenda. Local leaders know that having sovereign capacity here matters in an increasingly tumultuous world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many industrial strategy zones see themselves as possible sites, particularly in coastal communities and freeports due to their large, vacant sites and connections to offshore energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are also mindful that we want projects that drive jobs and employment. There is place selection for the AI growth zones, so they won\u2019t be a feature in every industrial strategy zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: What is the greatest challenge you face in your role?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We will succeed as a country if the very highest levels of government thinking around our economic future are married to very specific ground-level delivery and operation. It\u2019s creating the conditions under which you can align all of those parts within it, with an inherited and irregular topography of zones and local authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fonte: FDI Intelligence | Foto: Reprodu\u00e7\u00e3o<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 3 minutos<\/small> The UK\u2019s Labour government came to power in July 2024 promising change. Onlookers have been surprised at their decision to maintain some policies championed by their Conservative predecessors. One example is the UK\u2019s special economic zones \u2014 freeports, investment zones and enterprise zones \u2014 which have been criticised for not delivering their target investment and jobs. Various SEZs have been set up by successive governments in a piecemeal way without a broader vision. As part of an action plan released in June, Continue lendo<\/span>\u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[72,80,74],"class_list":["entry","author-fpx","post-8070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-noticias","tag-abrazpe","tag-comercio-exterior","tag-zpe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8072,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8070\/revisions\/8072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}None of these things are a magic silver bullet<\/q><\/p>\n\n\n\n