A Conversation With ... Brian Weiler

How can the foreign trade zone, which defers and reduces customs on imported products, help businesses?
It’s a tool in the toolbox, not only for the airport but also for economic development folks in the area, and businesses. Let’s say I’m a manufacturer and I employ 300 or 400 people and I want to compete in the global market place, and I may get parts for whatever widget that I’m manufacturing from all around the world, including the United States. Having that foreign trade zone status and being able to bring those components in and assemble them – if I choose to sell those in the United States, I’ll pay duties on them when they leave the foreign trade zone, or if I choose to sell in the global economy, then technically that product never entered the United States and therefore was never subject to those duties.

In September, the Foreign Trade Zone Board of the U.S. Department of Commerce approved alternate site framework, expanding the foreign trade zone from the airport property to 23 southwest Missouri counties. Who is using the expanded zone?
Our first subapplicant is Jarden Consumer Solutions out of Neosho, coming on line, we anticipate, in July. Jarden is a national company and importer and does retail distribution, light assembly work and some value-added packaging. (The) plant in Neosho employs about 300 people. This FTZ status allows them to have more inventory control. Really, what it comes down to is margins. It may save them a little bit of money per product on the manufacturing or the retail, but in that environment, those margins may be the difference between making a profit or being able to go into an area.

What’s the next step for getting more businesses to use the foreign trade zone?
We are now cooperating with the Springfield chamber, Missouri Department of Transportation and the Missouri Department of Economic Development to do an analysis of the entire 23-county region, to look at the business activity that’s occurring in this region and identify existing businesses that would benefit from utilizing foreign trade zone status and emerging markets where we may have a niche that we can exploit in southwest Missouri to create new business development. We hope to start that study in the next two months. We’ve also been working with the DED and MoDOT to look at transportation barriers, because you don’t have to utilize air cargo or aviation to use our foreign trade zone. As this develops, we plan on having a series of workshops and summits to get the word out to local officials to recognize that this is a tool for them.

What other ideas do you have for expanding zone usage?
I’ve gotten several phone calls, and folks who may import 10 containers a year (asking,) “Can I become a foreign trade zone?” And probably, the simple answer is, they don’t generate enough volume that it’s going to be worth it, because there are fees associated with it, and some ongoing expense. We have a foreign trade zone consultant helping us on this, and we’re hearing that a company really needs to be doing $10 million in imports and exports to (benefit). One concept I’m interested in exploring is identifying two or three companies (with smaller amounts) and bringing them together (as) a foreign trade subunit that could be more for distribution and smaller businesses could tap into that. But we’re too early in the process to go forward.

Why do you think having a foreign trade zone is important for the region?
Whether we like it or not or whatever your opinion is, we’re in a global economy. Major manufacturing of components is done all across the world and brought together. And do we want that assembly work to be done in foreign countries, or do we want it to be a niche that we can fill in southwest Missouri? Not having an active foreign trade zone capability may have been the difference in us not getting a business that chose to go somewhere else.[[In-content Ad]]