Yeah, I know I'm late to the party. Everybody and their little cousin from up country have read this book, and I hadn't come around to write a review. What you need to know about the book is the following: cutting taxes doesn't work, if people aren't making a profit to begin with. Other than that, there's little key lessons to extract from this particular work, other than justly-placed criticism of both public and private greed.
To expand, the book talks about the economic zones of Africa - the economies of which are hardly competitive compared to that of the European and (particularly) Asian nations. Europe had already moved into the high-tech and service sectors, which Africa couldn't hope to compete with. However, just as the SEZ train was picking up steam in Africa, Asia had already undergone its makeover and was going gangbusters in manufacturing.
The really cool thing about reading this study is that the position of Africa and Asia have changed drastically in 12 years: Africa is now going into the manufacturing sectors, while Asia is catching up to and outperforming the west at the same time. Reading this is as much refreshing and new as it is retreading the points made in other, better written SEZ literature. By no means should you miss this work if you plan on working in SEZs and/or Africa.
7/10