Eritrea, a new commercial hub for international trade? :  A case study of the Eritrean Free Zone Authority

Abstract: Many people have not even heard about Eritrea and even less about the free zones that is establishing there. The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding about the free zones that exits in Eritrea today. The port of Massawa is the one that the focus is upon in our thesis. The reason for the implementation of the free zones is the re-construction of the economy. The country is restoring the economy due to the fact that they had been in war with Ethiopia. Free zones are an established concept that already exists in other country’s for example Djibouti, Dubai, Sudan and so on. The free zones in Eritrea will have to show its forefeet to be competitive. We want to increase the understanding of the free zones in Eritrea and even increase the understanding for how the strategy and the project are being handled. We will use models and theories to explain how the implementation is being done in the Eritrean free zones. The models that we are going to use, will illustrate how the management can be done. The methodological chapter will describe the approached used during the entire thesis. By collecting various kinds of data, the understanding has increased. We have analyzed all data, concluded the report and offered further recommendations.