Zona Franca Bogotá awarded as Best Free Zone Specialist in BPO
The Free Trade Zone of Bogota was awarded as Best Free Zone Specialist in BPO within the framework of Global Free Zones of the Year Awards 2017 that annually awards the FDi Intelligence, Center of Excellence of Foreign Direct Investment (IED), division of the newspaper Financial Times.
The FDi World’s Best Free Trade Zone contest recognizes the most promising free trade zones worldwide. For this year’s awards, FDi invited free trade zones, government entities and investment promotion agencies to complete a brief survey detailing the characteristics of the area, facilities and incentives offered to investors. A total of 66 free zone entries were received worldwide and studied by panel of judges appointed by FDi. The judges announced first second and third places for each region. In the area of BPOs the Free Trade Zone of Bogota won best Free Zone Specialist for several reasons:
ZF Towers Services & Technology Park
As specialists in services for BPO, KPO, ITO outsourcing industries, the Free Trade Zone of Bogotá emphasizes the importance of knowing the business and understanding market needs. To this end it has turnkey solutions for the development of ZF Towers Services & Technology Park, the most important services and technology park in the country with 64,000 square meters built within the Free Trade Zone of Bogotá, employability for 13,300 people belonging to the sector, operation of 32 service and technology companies, turnkey solutions for BPO jobs and free regime incentives. In ZF Towers, profitability can increase up to 35.6%. Within the services and technology park the construction of ZF Towers 135A also stands out.
Buildings with LEED GOLD Certification
The Bogota Free Trade Zone is a pioneer in the construction of the ZF Towers 135A within a free trade zone. The Towers boast 14,000 square meters with a capacity for more than 3,000 jobs and has the LEED GOLD certification granted by the US Green Building Council ( USGBC), the council for sustainable construction nationwide in the United States. The building complies with the highest standards of sustainability, environmental responsibility, comfort and quality of life for its users. Buildings with LEED GOLD certification generate savings between 30% and 70% in energy consumption, 30% and 50% in water use and a waste reduction of up to 90%.
Free zone regime for the service sector
According to data from the National Association of Industrialists of Colombia (ANDI), the service sector moves more than $ 6 billion a year and contributes 1.2% of GDP and is considered a key sector in the generation of employment with 350,000 jobs in the totality of the industry, which includes contact centers, BPO, KPO and ITO services, among others. In this sense, the Free Trade Zone of Bogota as an agent of the free trade zone regime, has several benefits that help companies in this sector to expand objective:
- 20% Income Tax in Free Zone vs. 40% in Colombia (Income Tax plus surcharge)
- 10.5% savings on electricity tariffs
- 10% savings in water consumption
- 7.26% Rotation of personnel in ZFB vs. 12% Rotation in Bogotá
- Rates per job 9% below the average market price
Data Centers ZF Towers
ZF Towers Data Centers are designed and built specially to provide integrated and reliable infrastructure solutions to ensure companies the continuity of their operations. In addition, it is considered the first Data Center network in Colombia with TIER III certification from the Uptime Institute thanks to the certification of 2 Data Centers in TIER III Data Center design and the certification of 2 Data Centers in TIER III Data Center Construction. Some of its characteristics are: advanced infrastructure, scalability and modularity, security, energy autonomy, refrigeration, fuel, commissioning, detection and extinction, communications, among others.