A designated area, often within a less economically developed country, where normal tariffs and quotas do not apply. It is common for the conditions of employment there to be more repressive; such zones are often mandatorily union-free, and working conditions can be harsh (Traub-Werner (2006) Antipode 38, 1). See Wei and Leung (2005) Growth & Change 36, 1 on the Waigaoqiao free trade zone, Shanghai, and Mullings (2004) J. Econ. Geog. 4 on Antigua’s free trade zone. See Shen (2004) Prof. Geogr. 56, 4 on a shift from cross-border protectionism to cross-border free trade zone in Hong Kong: ‘a rearticulation of the state cutting through the geoeconomic and geopolitical time-space envelopes’.