The Hawksbill Creek Agreement was an agreement signed in 1955 between the Government of the Bahamas

The Bahamas

The Bahamas , officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a nation consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets . It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola , northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States...

 and Mr Wallace Groves to establish a city and free trade zone

Free trade zone

A free trade zone or export processing zone , also called foreign-trade zone, formerly free port is an area within which goods may be landed, handled, manufactured or reconfigured, and reexported without the intervention of the customs authorities...

 on Grand Bahama Island with an aim of spurring economic development

Economic development

Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...

 in the region

Region

Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...

.

Groves was granted 50,000 acres (200 km²) of land with an option of adding an additional 50,000 acres (200 km²). The Grand Bahama Port Authority Ltd

Grand Bahama Port Authority

The Grand Bahama Port Authority is a privately held corporation that also acts as the municipal authority for Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, The Bahamas...

 was created to develop and administer the land. The city of Freeport

Freeport, Bahamas

Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone located on the island of Grand Bahama of the North-west Bahamas. In 1955, Wallace Groves, a Virginian financier with lumber interests in Grand Bahama, was granted 50,000 acres Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone located on the island of...

 was planned and built from scratch as a consequence. To encourage investment, the agreement also freed the Port Authority from paying taxes on income

Income

Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...

, capital gains, real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

and private property until 1985—a provision that has since been extended to the year 2054.