Investment Climate Survey 2003

The sample consists of 450 manufacturing firms. To account for size characteristics, firms were divided into four groups based on the number of permanent employees: micro firms (1 to 9 employees) - 31 percent of the sample, small firms (10 to 25 employees) - 28 percent of the sample, medium firms (26 to 75 employees) - 16 percent of the sample, and large firms (over 76 employees) - 25 percent of the sample.

The majority of the firms are domestically owned, with only 15.78 percent reporting foreign ownership. Foreign owned firms are concentrated within the large firm group where 50.5 percent of the firms are foreign. Thirty three percent of the firms surveyed report exporting some part of their production. Exporter firms tend to be concentrated within the large and medium firm groups, where 77 percent and 42 percent report exports respectively.

Furniture and Wood, Food and Tobacco and Apparel are the three most important sectors surveyed, reflecting the composition of the Honduran manufacturing sector.

Firms in the sample belong to 14 departments in Honduras. Following standard classifications used in other studies firms were grouped in four regions as follows: Center South (49.6 percent), North Coast (37.6 percent), Olancho (8.2 percent) and West (4.7 percent). Within the three most important sectors surveyed (Apparel, Furniture and Wood, Food and Tobacco) different patterns of industrial location stand out: Apparel firms and (to a lesser extent) wood firms, are mainly located in the North Coast while Furniture and Wood and Food and Tobacco industries tend to be located in the Center South region of the country.

The survey design also makes it possible to account for the fact that some firms surveyed are Maquilas. Given the information available, Maquilas were defined as firms benefiting either from the Ley de Zonas Libre or the Ley de Zonas de Procesamiento para exportación and exporting directly more than half of their production. The Maquilas subsample is mainly composed of large firms (48.6 percent of the large firm group is a Maquila) operating in the apparel industry and in 74.6 percent of the cases is foreign owned. Maquilas are located in 73 percent of the cases in the North coast region of the country.