The Free Trade Zone of Manaus (FTZM) was created in 1957 as a policy instrument to generate employment, promote industrialization and enhance regional integration of the Brazilian Amazon, as well as a way to affirm the sovereignty of the Amazonas state on this remote region. This policy brief presents the relative economic and social success of the FTZM for the municipality of Manaus, but also highlights how this industrial strategy has failed to spread its benefits to the entire state of Amazonas. Policy responses are required to promote poverty reduction and to enable the poorest of the poor to draw advantage from the economic dynamism of the FTZM.
