The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Foreign Trade Zones Board has approved the World Jewelry Center as a permanent Foreign Trade Zone. It is designated as Site 7 and will be operated by the Nevada International Trade Corp. on behalf of the WJC.

The announcement was made jointly by Somer Hollingsworth, president and chief executive officer of the Nevada Development Authority, Grantee of FTZ # 89, and NITCO president and chief executive officer JoAnne Tornberg.

Tornberg said the FTZ designation includes general-purpose zone warehousing and exhibition services.

“Merchandise entering a Foreign Trade Zone may be assembled, cleaned, destroyed, displayed, mixed, manipulated, manufactured (with permit), processed, re-labeled, repackaged, repaired, salvaged, sampled, stored, tested, re-exported, or distributed (domestic, international, zone-to-zone), ” Tornberg said. “All functions can be performed within highly secure U.S. Customs–approved facilities.”

“We have been counting on approval of the FTZ,” said WJC managing director Bill Boyajian. “The FTZ designation creates many important cost-savings advantages for our participating firms, such as duty deferral, paperwork reduction, and the elimination of duty on goods exported from the United States. FTZ designation also reduces the global supply chain timeline to import and export, the FTZ processing/manufacturing authority (approval required) may allow lower duty rates, and NAFTA qualifying goods are duty free to Canada and Mexico.”

For more information on the World Jewelry Center, the Foreign Trade Zone, or to schedule a presentation, please call 1-310-888-8864, or e-mail info@worldjewelrycenter.com, or visit www.worldjewelrycenter.com.

JCK