Attention all exporters who use foreign trade zones (FTZs) to conduct international business: The Foreign Trade Division would greatly appreciate your help in collecting the most accurate information on exports from FTZs! Specifically, the information I am referring to is the FTZ identifier reported in the Automated Export System (AES). After we noticed that some export shipments filed in the AES had incomplete information reported in this field, we decided the accuracy of these data needed to be improved. After all, collecting accurate information is necessary for us to publish FTZ export statistics and to better meet the needs of our data users. Statistics for FTZs are included in exhibits such as this: //www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/2011pr/04/exh2s.txt

What does this mean for anyone filing an export shipment?

For filing in the AES, this means reporting both the general purpose zone code and the subzone code in the FTZ field of the AES. This two-part code is a combination of the one to three digit numeric general purpose zone code and the one to two character alpha subzone code.

Look at this example:

For export filers who this relates to, there is more information on FTZs and their identification codes at this website:  //ia.ita.doc.gov/ftzpage/letters/ftzlist-map.html

As always, if there are any changes to the AES reporting requirements regarding FTZs, filers will be notified in advance.