The Introduction posted here is from the author's book on "Tax Free Trade Zones of the World and in the United States" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012), posted on SSRN by permission of the author and publisher.Within the last few years small and large international companies in all corners of the globe have discovered that tax free trade zones can prove to be an effective tool to develop new markets and to increase earnings from existing foreign trade and manufacturing operations. Presently, there are over 3,000 tax free trade zones, free ports, and similarly designated areas of the world, including about 277 foreign trade zones and more than 500 special purpose subzones in the United States. These zones enable importers and exporters to benefit from a variety of customs-privileged facilities that offer them guarantees, incentives, and numerous advantages. By seeking the sheltered areas best suited to their needs, companies engaged in processing and assembling can also save on taxes and trim costs, including transportation expenses, rental fees, wages, finance charges, and insurance premiums.Today, thousands of imported products, from delicate caviar to sophisticated electronics and machinery, are lodged in free trade zones located in 135 countries, and the free trade zones abroad and the U.S. foreign trade zones together reportedly have employed more than 43 million workers. Domestic or foreign enterprises buying products from abroad can store goods in a customs-free facility prior to shipment into the country where the zone is located. Storage can result in substantial savings in financing charges and increased cash flows. Some importers depend upon free trade zones to package, label, sort, assemble, process or manufacture finished goods prior to re-exporting their duty-exempt finished products.

This definitive and comprehensive book, with contributions from world-renowned foreign trade zone expert, the late Walter Diamond, provides an up-to-date guide to the free trade zones and subzones in the United States and around the world. Economic reasons for using free trade zones are explored, encompassing the benefits gained and profits earned, such as exemptions, reductions from customs duties, proximity to foreign export markets, and low-cost processing and packaging of goods designed to lower duties or freight charges. Practical, hard-to-locate data and contact details are provided on every free trade zone in the US, as well as information on the history, growth and types of users in each zone, storage space, transportation access, the cost of user facilities, utilities, communications, labor availability, warehousing features, and enterprise zones within the free trade zone. Tax Free Trade Zones of the World and in the United States will be an invaluable reference tool for a wide-ranging professional audience including: international, multinational and business law firms, tax advisory and finance firms, international sales and marketing executives, import, export and shipping companies, customs brokers and insurance agencies. In addition, it will prove a useful, practical resource for law students focusing on international business and international trade.

Free trade zones (FTZs) date back to the time of the Phoenicians; they developed in the 1970s and proliferated from 1980 until today. FTZs are duty-free areas where goods may be warehoused, processed, sold, serviced, distributed, showcased, packaged, labeled, sorted, assembled, and manufactured as finished goods, prior to re-exporting them as duty-exempt finished products. More than one 135 countries operate tax-free trade zones. There are more than 3,500 of these zones and subzones all over the world, and 277 FTZs and 500 subzones exist in the United States, creating 68 million direct jobs and over $500 billion of direct trade-related value added within the zones. FTZs benefit both importers and exporters because both save on taxes, reduce transportation costs, avoid financing charges, and thereby increase their business cash flow. Exporters view FTZs as an entry into foreign markets, an opportunity to defer or avoid customs duties, and a way to obtain income tax exemptions or reductions. This article is a primer on the way FTZs work in the United States and abroad. It asks whether FTZs have had an impact on the U.S. economy. The article delves deeply into the business benefits and tax advantages of FTZs. U.S. exports from general purpose zones and subzones have generally increased from 1989 to 2008, earning the U.S. from $10 to $40 billion. Despite the plethora of bilateral trade agreements and the fall in U.S. tariff rates, which have increased the importation of foreign products into the U.S., the use of FTZs has grown significantly since 1970 and resulted in an increase in US exports. By using FTZs, the U.S. manufacturer can get around the "inverted tariff rate" which encourages the importation of foreign goods into the US. FTZs reduce costs for the American business and incentivize exportation of U.S. products. FTZs can play a significant role in economic growth by increasing exports, enhancing industry competitiveness, and attracting foreign direct investment. Special privileges are given to manufacturers who export the products processed in the FTZ. Export processing zones (EPZs) focus on manufacturing of exports only and allow investors to import and export goods free of duties and exchange controls, facilitate licensing and other regulatory processes, and liberate businesses from obligations to pay corporate taxes, value added taxes, or other local taxes. The purpose of FTZs is to attract foreign direct investment; alleviate unemployment, especially for women; foster economic reform strategies by developing and diversifying exports; and test new approaches to foreign direct investment and to government policies related to law, land, labor, and the pricing of goods. Some FTZs succeed (if they are focused on increasing exports) and some FTZs fail (if the industry simply takes advantage of the tax advantages without producing substantial employment or export earnings and without providing healthy labor and environmental conditions for the workers). FTZs have been criticized for bad labor practices, environmental abuses, the failure to increase exports sufficiently, and the liberal use of zones by money launderers and narcotics traffickers. Nevertheless, FTZs reduce the cost of manufacturing in America, reduce the massive trade deficit, and help create new jobs for American workers. There are conflicting reports on the advantages and disadvantages of FTZs and their impact on the U.S. economy. In order for FTZs to increase exports, facilitate constructive international trade, and enhance international business, rational and reasonable regulatory schemes must ensure that zones are being used for the primary purpose of increasing exports and safeguarding social and environmental standards both in the U.S. and abroad.

Special economic zones (SEZs) have become a permanent feature of the world trade scene. This book, the first to provide a critical and comprehensive analysis of SEZs covering a wide spectrum of countries and regions, shows how SEZs, albeit established at the domestic level by different countries, raise multiple legal issues under international economic law. This first-rate book is the product of the Asia FDI Forum IV held in Hong Kong in 2018. Thoroughly exploring the development of the SEZ phenomenon and its players, the contributing authors (all leading economic law experts) review the issues raised by SEZs in the context of international trade law, international investment law and investment arbitration. They identify the extent to which SEZs have been coherent in their design and policymaking, in particular with regard to domestic law reforms. They address such aspects (both core themes and specific examples) as the following: investment protection in China’s SEZs; state-owned enterprises regulation; dispute settlement; under what circumstances incentives available in SEZs count as export subsidies prohibited under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules; compliance with internal market rules in European Union (EU) free zones; local populations as victims of land expropriation; Brazil’s Manaus Free Trade Zone; India’s experience with multiple SEZs; the administrative approval system in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone; economic corridors and transit routes as SEZs; ‘refugee cities’: SEZs for migrants; how China’s Supreme People’s Court serves national strategy; how foreign investors challenge free-zone regimes; impacts of the establishment of SEZs on tax revenues; SEZs and labour migration; and management models. The chapters also include insights into the new emerging generation of international investment agreements; WTO accession, transparency, and case law materials clarifying specific trade issues associated with SEZs; and new rules to protect the environment and labour rights, as well as analysis of crucially significant cases such as Goetz v. The Republic of Burundi, Lee Jong Baek v. Kyrgyzstan and Ampal-American and Others v. Egypt. With its critical and comprehensive analysis of the dynamic SEZ phenomenon across legal, economic, investment, regulatory and policy matrices – including a thorough analysis of the success factors and required policies for SEZs – this book takes a giant step towards answering the question whether SEZs fundamentally contradict norms of international law or whether SEZs have to be considered as laboratories which facilitate the implementation of international economic policies. Its careful examination of theory and practice and its approach to lessons learned from case studies will reward trade and investment officials, policymakers, diplomats, economists, lawyers, think tanks, business leaders and others interested in this ever more important area of law and economics.

Explains process of importing goods into the U.S., including informed compliance, invoices, duty assessments, classification and value, marking requirements, etc.

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