[Video message]
Minister Moltó, Chairman Alzarooni, Excellencies, Dear Friends,
Thank you for the invitation. It is fitting that we meet in Panama – a country whose history proves that the right infrastructure, in the right place, can generate prosperity for an entire region.
This Congress asks about the future of free zones. That question starts with trade itself. Free zones were designed for a particular model – North-South flows, linear supply chains, cost-based competition. That model is giving way to something fundamentally different.
Two points. First, the trade landscape that is emerging. Second, what it demands of free zones.
I start with the landscape.
Three-quarters of global growth now comes from the developing world. The global South’s share of world trade has risen from 20% in 1995 to over 50% today. Fifty-seven per cent of developing country exports now go to other developing markets. South-South investment flows have quadrupled since the 1990s. Trade is becoming multipolar – more nodes, more pathways, more regional networks.
And the logic of global production is changing with it. For decades, firms organized supply chains around one principle: cost efficiency –sourcing from wherever was cheapest, building long, lean, centralized chains. That logic is breaking down. Geopolitical tensions, pandemic disruptions, and ongoing conflict – including in the Middle East, where trade route disruptions continue to raise energy and food costs across import-dependent economies – have exposed the fragility of that model.
Firms are responding by friendshoring, regionalizing, building redundancy. The organizing principle is shifting from efficiency to resilience. Global production is moving from linear supply chains to diversified value networks – more regional anchors, more distributed risk. This opens real opportunities for economies that can offer reliability, connectivity, and institutional quality.
This brings me to my second point — what this means for free zones.
With over 6,000 zones worldwide, the opportunity is enormous. But cost competitiveness alone will no longer be enough. The zones that thrive will be those that also compete on connectivity – on their ability to plug firms into regional networks, to link logistics with services, to offer the reliability that the new supply chain logic demands.
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is supporting this transition. At this congress, Jamaica will launch a digital platform for its Special Economic Zones Authority, developed with UNCTAD’s digital government programme and EU support – cutting red tape, building transparency. We aim to extend it across the region. And through the Global Alliance of Special Economic Zones – GASEZ – we are helping zones share what works. The World FZO has been a valued founding partner.
Excellencies,
A century ago, this country built a canal and reshaped the map of global trade. Today, that map is being redrawn – by new corridors, new networks, new patterns of production. Free zones can be where the new map takes shape. UNCTAD stands ready to support you.
I thank you.