According to the Public Relations and International Affairs of the Kish Free Zone Organization, a meeting of the Kish Investors and Entrepreneurs Association with Hossein Forouzan, Secretary of the Supreme Council of Free and Special Economic Zones, was held to review the issues and problems of economic actors, identify obstacles to investment and examine operational solutions to improve the business environment on Kish Island.
At this meeting, a group of Kish investors and entrepreneurs raised the most important concerns and challenges facing economic activities and stressed the need to remove obstacles, facilitate executive and administrative processes, and provide more suitable conditions for investment development in the region.
Emphasis on the private sector's role in resolving free zone issues
Hossein Forouzan, emphasizing the extensive capacity of the private sector in the free zones, said: resolving free zone issues is not possible without the participation and cooperation of economic actors, and the private sector must more seriously enter various arenas to identify problems and propose executable solutions.
Forouzan, referring to the experience and capacity of Kish investors and entrepreneurs, added: economic actors, in addition to presenting existing issues and obstacles, can also play an effective role in proposing solutions and in the decision-making process.
He also stressed the need to strengthen communication between the expert and managerial bodies of the free zones and private sector actors, saying: continuous interaction and the formation of an effective dialogue between the private sector and the Secretariat can shorten and make the process of addressing issues and removing obstacles more operational.
Pursuing private sector membership on free zone boards
The Secretary of the Supreme Council of Free and Special Economic Zones, in another part of this meeting, referred to the necessity of increasing private sector participation in the managerial structure of the free zones, and reported on follow-ups carried out to enable private sector representatives to become members of the boards of directors of free zone organizations.
Forouzan described this action as aimed at strengthening the private sector's role in decision-making processes and using the capacity of economic actors to manage and resolve free zone issues.
Formation of a joint working group to identify problems
Continuing the meeting, emphasis was placed on the need to create a specific mechanism for collecting, categorizing, and prioritizing the issues of Kish economic actors.
Accordingly, it was decided that a working group be formed within the Kish Investors and Entrepreneurs Association to identify problems and draft proposed solutions so that, while precisely identifying existing issues and obstacles, it would also prepare the private sector's proposals and submit them to the Secretariat of the Supreme Council of Free and Special Economic Zones for review and follow-up.
It was also decided that, to prevent the accumulation of issues and accelerate the decision-making and implementation process, continuous meetings between the Kish Investors and Entrepreneurs Association and the Secretariat of the Supreme Council of Free and Special Economic Zones would continue and that the raised topics would be pursued within a defined process until results are achieved.
This approach can pave the way for forming a more effective model of government–private sector interaction in the Kish Free Zone; a model in which investors and entrepreneurs, in addition to their economic role, also effectively participate in identifying issues, proposing solutions, and the decision-making process.