About five

years go the Development Authority of Peachtree City and the Peachtree

City Council looked into having a Free Trade Zone in its city. Having

an FTZ allows companies importing certain goods to either defer or delay

the application of reduced import duties.

These Zones

are Congressionally approved and the process is quite detailed. Currently,

there are only five in Georgia: the Brunswick and Savannah ports, Hartsfield

International Airport, Bainbridge, and the Peachtree City Industrial Park.

Former mayor Bob Lenox spearheaded the effort and after working through

numerous challenges, the entire Peachtree City Industrial Park became

an extension of the Hartsfield Zone.

Some of the

advantages of FTZ include storage of import/export goods without full

customs or government taxes and formalities, duty-free inventory management,

control distribution and manufacturing and United States Customs clearance

and United States Department of Agriculture services are available.

Working through

the Georgia State Foreign Trade Zone office, the Peachtree City officials

met with representatives of the Hipage Company, who built a warehouse

facility in the Peachtree City Industrial Zone. It is a 27-year-old company

serving as a customhouse broker and international freight forwarders.

The first customer

of Hipage is Aventure International Aviation Services, who relocated its

facilities and offices to the Peachtree City Industrial Park Foreign Trade

Zone. Aventure provides international marketing representation and consultant

services to companies who are eager to broaden their customer base. It

also supplies aviation parts and manages maintenance, repair and overhaul

of aircraft components on behalf of customers.