03 February 2011

Ciudad Modelo ~ New Honduran Charter City?

Exciting to read David Wessel's piece in the WSJournal, The Quest for a 'Charter City' about the Honduran moves to enable and initiate a new kind of economic empowerment zone...
"For the past couple of years, economist Paul Romer has been hopscotching the globe looking for a country desperate enough to try his audacious notion: Start a new "charter city," an enclave free of old laws and practices [...] Honduras is interested. Two weeks ago, with only one "no," its Congress voted to amend the constitution to allow for a ciudad modelo. [...] To create jobs to lift millions out of poverty, take an uninhabited 1,000 square-kilometer tract (386 square miles), about the size of Hong Kong, preferably government-owned. Write a charter: the all-important rules. Allow anyone to move in or out. Invite foreign investors to build infrastructure for profit. And sign a treaty with a well-governed country, say Norway or Canada, to serve as "guarantor" to assure investors and residents that the charter will be respected, much as the British once did for Hong Kong, and -- with some oversight from the Honduran Congress -- govern the city."
Bold idea! Read more at Charter Cities. And see more from WSJ...

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