RAPAPORT… The planned World Jewelry Center in Las Vegas was granted status as a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) by the United States Department of Commerce’s Foreign Trade Zones Board.

The Center was designated as Site 7 and will be operated by the Nevada International Trade Corporation (NITCO) on behalf of the World Jewelry Center, within the 61-acre master-planned community of Union Park.

The announcement was made jointly by Somer Hollingsworth, president and CEO of the Nevada Development Authority, grantee of FTZ # 89, and NITCO president and CEO 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," Tornberg added.

Bill Boyajian, managing director of the World Jewelry Center, thanked Tornberg and the mayor of Las Vegas and office of business development for helping the Center seek FTZ approval.

“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," Boyajian said. "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."

The World Jewelry Center is owned and operated by Heritage Nevada-VIII LLC, a single purpose entity.