Prince George A Foreign Trade Zone

Feb 23, 2018 | 1:01 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It’s a real feather in the city’s cap. The Government of Canada has designated Prince George as a Foreign Trade Zone point. According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Foreign Trade Zone is “… a specific location within a country that is officially designated for eligibility for tariff and tax exemptions with respect to the purchase or importation of raw materials, components or finished goods. Such materials and goods can generally be stored, processed or assembled in the FTZ for re-export or for entry into the domestic market.”

“A really good example could be the manufacturing of shirts,” says Melissa Barcellos, the City’s Economic Development Officer. “If they are manufactured in Asia and they want to bring [the shirts] into Canada, complete the manufacturing process, like sew on the sleeves and pockets and buttons, they can then, as long as they’ve done a certain percentage of that process within Canada, put a ‘Made in Canada’ tag on them. They can do all of that processing in Prince George and then export it to the markets where they want [the shirts] to be sold.”

So machinery to do the production of those shirts, for example, is tax-free.

Prince George is the ninth such Foreign Trade Zone in Canada and the sole FTZ in BC.