Foreign Trade Zones have been in use for nearly seventy six years with the passage of the Foreign Trade Zones Act of 1934 to expedite and encourage foreign commerce. Foreign Trade Zones are now a key component of U.S. trade policy and offer companies several opportunities to reduce costs with:
- Exemption of duty payment upon re-export of goods
- Relief from inverted tariffs where raw materials with high duty rates can be transformed to an end product with a low duty rate
- Use of consolidated weekly entries to reduce merchandise processing fees (MPFs)
- Deferral of duty on any inventory stored within an FTZ
For many companies these benefits can justify the investment in a Foreign-Trade Zone in the first year of operation.
