Foreign trade zones (or free ports)

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1801857903

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-199077

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Foreign trade zones (or free ports)

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States Government Printing Off.

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: IX, 322 S; Ill., graph. Darst

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part 1. General analysis

Collection:: Economics Books

FOREIGN TRADE ZONES 11 into the large port it now is solely on account of the needs of the extensive popu- lation at its door; neither has it developed because of the manufactures carried on in its vicinity or of natural wealth, such as coal, to be exported from its neigh- borhood. It is true that within 25 miles of the docks there is 2 population of 9,000,000 people and that the port is the mouth through which the population is largely fed and supplied by ships. It is true also that there are in and near London engineering factories, breweries, tobacco works, and so on, but the people are not as a whole dependent upon such industries as in what is termed “a manufacturing town.” What is supremely true of London is that it has devel- oped into a great international market and the financial center of the world. Of its vast population an enormous proportion finds its vocation as distributors and middlemen, financiers and bankers, bookkeepers and typists. Immense quanti- ties of goods are imported not for the population at hand to consume or manu- facture but for storage, sale, and distribution to other parts of the kingdom and, indeed, other parts of the world. This entrepot trade has always been the most striking feature of the port of London. Free ports are designed to encourage international trade of the character in which London has been so successful, but which can not be carried on in customs ports in high tariff countries without incon- venience and expense. 2. SPECIAL FACTORS WHICH WOULD AFFECT THE VALUE OF FREE PORT OR FOREIGN TRADE ZONES IN THE UNITED STATES The balance of Part I of this report consists mainly of an analysis of various aspects of free ports as developed outside of the United States with a view to suggesting the probable consequences of estab- lishing such a system in the United States. Tt must not be assumed, however, that the consequences of estab- lishing free ports or foreign trade zones in the United States would necessarily be identical with those which have followed the estab- lishment of free ports abroad. Owing to the remoteness of most American ports from foreign countries to which imported goods could be reexported, it should not be expected that the immediate use of American free ports would approach that of Hamburg or the other more active free ports of Europe. The ultimate importance of free ports to the United States would largely depend on the extent to which American ports became world centers for the distribution of goods coming from or the collection of goods destined for certain areas of the world, near by or afar, which are not themselves great shipping centers. That there would immediately be some business of this kind there can be no doubt. As to whether it would ulti- mately be large or small, only the future could tell. This report will aim to throw as much light as possible on the char- acter of the advantages now derived by free ports abroad and which might be anticipated for free ports or foreign trade zones in the United States.

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