ZEDE Program in Honduras

ZEDE stands for Zone for Employment and Economic Development.
The Honduran ZEDEs are the boldest version of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) known today. ZEDE program in Honduras allows private companies to create SEZs with their own administrative, legal, regulatory, and taxation systems.

Direct quotes from the Official ZEDE website:

"ZEDEs are territorial spaces that are highly attractive for domestic and foreign investment, which are an inalienable part of the State of Honduras, subject to the Constitution of the Republic and the national government on issues regarding sovereignty, application of justice, territory, national defense, foreign affairs, electoral issues, issuing of identity documents and passports, as established in Article 329, paragraph 7 of the Constitution of the Republic."

"ZEDEs have legal personality, are authorized to establish their own internal policy and regulations, created with the purpose of accelerating the fulfillment of the Nation Plan goals and facilitate conditions that will allow the country to enter global markets under highly competitive and stable rules. This through the adoption of technologies that allow production with high added value, in a transparent environment and capable of attracting domestic and foreign investments required to grow rapidly, create the jobs needed to reduce social inequalities and provide the population with education, health, public safety and infrastructure that will allow a real improvement in the living conditions of Hondurans."

You can learn more in detail about how to create a ZEDE from the Official ZEDE website.

Videos about ZEDE program:

Lecture of Professor Tom W. Bell : "Startup Cities," Honduras, and Experiments in Freedom

Interview with the advisor to the president of Honduras, Mark Klugmann.
LEAP zones in Honduras, June 2019.

Useful Documents: