The Kandla Special Economic Zone, now officially branded KASEZ, sits on the outskirts of town and is one of India's oldest free trade zones. It was set up in 1965 to attract export-oriented manufacturing, and the mix of industries that grew up inside it reflects several decades of Indian industrial policy — everything from pharmaceuticals and chemicals to engineering goods and processed foods.
The zone itself is not open to casual visitors, but its existence explains much of the urban fabric of modern Kandla and Gandhidham: the wide roads laid out in the 1950s and 60s, the workers' colonies, and the steady traffic of container trucks that rumbles through both towns day and night. For anyone with a professional or academic interest in port economics or industrial history, it is worth knowing about; for the general traveller, it is background context rather than a destination.