MOSES LAKE - Businesses in Adams County will soon be able to benefit from the Port of Moses Lake's designation as a Foreign Trade Zone, pending the approval of an application to expand the trade zone's service area.

MOSES LAKE - Businesses in Adams County will soon be able to benefit from the Port of Moses Lake's designation as a Foreign Trade Zone, pending the approval of an application to expand the trade zone's service area.

Commissioners authorized port officials to file the application during a meeting earlier this week.

The port operates as FTZ No. 203, providing tenants with the financial benefits in imports and exports that accompany a FTZ - including allowing companies to store goods duty-free, delay tax and customs payments and lower inventory costs.

The FTZ adopted an Alternative Site Framework a few years back, which allows other areas in Central Washington to benefit from the port's FTZ status, port Executive Director Pat Jones said.

"About six years ago, when the FTZ was expanded all of the counties that were eligible to take advantage of that did so with one exception - Adams County," he said. "Adams County has now decided they would like to be a member of that group."

Currently, businesses in Grant, Chelan, Douglas, Franklin, Lincoln, Kittitas, Benton, Columbia, Okanogan, Walla Walla and Yakima counties have access to the FTZ's benefits, according to information on the port's website.

Advantages of using a FTZ include duty deferrals, delaying payment of duties on goods that enter the U.S. market; duty exemptions, no duties or quota charges on imported goods that are later re-exported, inverted tariffs and the reduction of duties if a lower tariff rate applies to the finished product rather than the tariff rates of the individual product's parts.