Industrial estates are primarily designed to improve production efficiency through the co-location of manufacturing plant and services but many of them also pose a substantial threat to the environment. Their size and number are expanding, particularly in countries undergoing fast industrialization.
Industrial estates are now common features of the urban landscape. The International Development Research Council records more than 12 000 estates around the world, ranging in size from 1 to more than 10 000 hectares.
These enclaves and zones usually have nothing but negative effects on developing countries' economies and serve ultimately as bases for transnational corporations to spread their activities among various countries in order to avoid having to comply with domestic laws and international standards. Such establishments have usually proved to be unstable because the parent company can decide, for commercial, economic or political reasons, to move its subsidiaries to other countries. The purpose of such practices is to evade the economic laws of the countries concerned, thereby constituting a violation of the right to development of the populations of those countries.