The cultural, scientific and technological free zone of Mérida state: An option for local development?

The ZOLCCYT was created to foster productive development within a competitive territory, accordingly, to promote local development process in Merida state through a unique system of preferential tax and customs exemption. The paper´s objective is to analyze and evaluate the ZOLCCYT with respect to local production development. To do so, we perform a comparative analysis of ex-ante and ex-post situations in relation to the project, from a baseline study performed before its implementation. The results of the area are the lack of promotion, deficient macroeconomic and political environment and an emerging institutional support that enable better economic performance.