Steve Craig Announces Chenango County Now a ‘Foreign-Trade Zone’

At a press conference last week, Steve Craig, executive director of development at Chenango Corporation, commerce Chenango’s economic development division, announced that Chenango County has officially been granted authority to establish a foreign-trade zone, allowing companies to import and export goods duty free until the items are released for sale.

Rebecca Sands, economic development coordinator for Commerce Chenango explains the foreign-trade zone concept.

"Right now when businesses create a product, a lot o times they're using materials that they're importing from outside of the country," she said. "Those materials have (1) a tariff quote on them and (2) a tariff fee attached to it. So when a material comes in, they pay that tax right away.

"Under the foreign-trade zone, when the materials come in, (businesses) don't pay any fees on that material until they are ready to release it into the United States," Sands added.

Out of the 62 counties in New York, there are only 10 that have the designation of foreign-trade zone. If you’d like to learn how businesses can benefit from the FTZ, call Sands at 607-334-1401.