Employment and social policy in respect of Export Processing Zones (EPZs)

International Labour Office

An excellent source of information can be found on www.ilo.org/epz  . 

The ILO has prepared a matrix of Zones worldwide by country including a list of sites per geographic region.

This latest estimate of EPZs worldwide gives the following statistics of interest to manufacturers and investors worldwide:

 

 
 1976
 1986
 1995
 1997
 2002
 No. of countries with EPZs
 25
 47
 73
 93
 116
 No. of EPZs
 79
 176
 500
 845
 3000
 Employment (millions)
 n.a
 n.a
 n.a
 22.5
 37
 - of which China
 n.a
 n.a
 n.a
 18
 30
 - other countries for which figures available
 0.8
 1.9
 n.a
 4.5
 7.0

 

Source: ILO calculations based on a variety of sources including zone administrations, national statistics, web sites, published articles and responses to ILO surveys.