CEVA opens Foreign Trade Zone operation in Miami

Global third-party logistics (3PL) services provider CEVA Logistics recently announced that it opened up a new Miami-based Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) operation, which was approved by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CEVA also has FTZ locations in Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago.

CEVA said that this new FTZ is comprised of an activated, secured and compliance controlled 4,172 square-foot area, which leverages CBP’s approved inventory-controlled systems, the Zone Lot Tracking System and First In, First Out Universal Identification Number System. For the former, each part of the shipment moves into and out of the zone as a unit, and for the latter individual parts are added to inventory and withdrawn using a First In First Out inventory recordkeeping system.  Those parts that were admitted first are shown on the inventory records as being withdrawn first.

Brenda Custer-Espeleta, Vice President, US Customs Brokerage Operations for CEVA told LM that servicing customers is what drove CEVA to open this Miami-based FTZ, which is in a location that is critical to the Latin American market and added that this project had been planned for the last nine months.

“An FTZ offers many benefits,” she said,” “the biggest is the potential to save Merchandise Processing Fees, (Fees that Customs charges on every entry filing) by utilizing Weekly Entry, which can only be done through a FTZ.”

Other benefits of an FTZ cited by CEVA include: Duty deferral – duties paid only upon transfer of goods from the FTZ into the U.S.; duty elimination on exports; duty reduction if scrap/waste while within the FTZ; and Harbor Maintenance Fee (HMF) deferred for Ocean arrivals – due quarterly rather than on arrival; and the biggest advantage - Merchandise Processing Fee (MPF) savings, paying a maximum of $485 weekly rather than $485 for each shipment.