Trade zone can aid Disney parks
Walt Disney World may want to take advantage of the new foreign-trade zone created in east Orange County for a new Disney Cruise Line warehouse.
Disney’s trade-zone application, which was submitted by Orlando International Airport and approved earlier this year by the federal government, states that the warehouse space Disney’s cruise division is leasing in the area could be expanded to hold “goods for theme parks.”
The chief purpose of the foreign-trade zone is still to allow Disney Cruise Line to move foreign-made goods between its warehouses and its Bahamian-flagged cruise ships without having to pay import duties. That’s because goods stored in such a trade zone are treated as thoough they had never entered the U.S. The goods for the ships include everything from spare diesel-engine parts and extra icemakers to artwork, bed linens, televisions, plush toys, liquor and chocolate.
But a secondary benefit of such a warehouse is that it could allow Disney World to defer paying duty on foreign-made merchandise used or sold in the giant resort.
Disney could import items straight to the warehouse and not have to pay duty on them until it was ready to use them.
Even without theme-park goods, Disney Cruise Line expects to store about $6.5million worth of foreign merchandise in the trade zone, according to the application. That amount will likely grow once two new ships that Disney is having built are put to use. Disney is leasing roughly 64,000 square feet of warehouse and office space, but the building has an additional 78,000 square feet of space available.