New foreign trade zones for Eastman Kodak Co.’s plant near Windsor and possibly for a 550-acre business park nearby may bring new jobs and new companies to northern Colorado.
The new zones mean Rochester, N.Y.-based Eastman Kodak, the world’s largest photography company, is exempt from paying tariffs on imported goods, said Scott Taylor, a Kansas City lawyer involved with getting the trade-zone approval. In addition, Kodak products will be duty-free when exported, he said.
That means, for example, that Kodak might install cartridges made overseas into its digital printers made in the United States, Taylor said.
“Just by having the status, it puts them on an even playing field,” Taylor said.
Kodak’s final approval came this month.
Kodak suppliers also may be tempted to move nearby, now that Great Western Industrial Park has applied for the trade- zone status, said Alex Yeros, a spokesman for the business park.
Great Western is being developed by the Broe Cos., a Denver-based real-estate and transportation-investment company, which also owns the Great Western Railway lines nearby.
“Manufacturing today is, in many cases, taking place overseas. This may be the exact incentive (companies) need to bring a manufacturing operation to Colorado, where they can purchase products and assemble them,” Yeros said.
Kodak has struggled in recent years to meet consumer demands for new digital technology over its traditional film operations. The company said in May it would put its X-ray film and equipment unit up for sale after its sixth straight quarter of losses.
Special trade zones are economic-development tools that have been around since the 1930s in the United States.
In Colorado, Denver International Airport and Stapleton, the former airport, have foreign trade-zone status, as does the Colorado Springs airport. Cities or businesses that want the special status must be within a 60-mile radius of those airports, or 90 minutes in driving distance.
San Diego-based telecommunications company Qualcomm, which has offices in Boulder, also recently applied for foreign trade-zone status here.
Such zones can save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses, Taylor said.
“This is one of the last options to manufacturing in the United States. It’s hard to compete with all the other factors that companies face,” Taylor said.
Staff writer Beth Potter can be reached at 303-820-1503 or bpotter@denverpost.com.
