NOTICES

                           DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

                             [Docket No. 41-91]

   Application for Expansion for Subzone 57A, IBM Information Processing
                                 Equipment
                            Plant, Charlotte, NC

                           Friday, July 26, 1991

An application has been submitted to the Foreign-Trade Zones Board (the
Board) by the North Carolina Department of Economic and Community
Development (NCDECD), grantee of FTZ Subzone 57A, at the information
processing equipment manufacturing plant of International Business Machines
Corporation (IBM), located in Charlotte, North Carolina, requesting to
expand the subzone and the scope of manufacturing authority. The application
was submitted pursuant to the provisions of the Foreign-Trade Zones  Act,
as amended (19 U.S.C. 81a-81u), and regulations of the Board (15 CFR part
400). It was formally filed on July 8, 1991.

Subzone 57A was approved in 1986 for the manufacture of printers,
electronic banking equipment and electronic assemblies (Board Order 323, 51
FR 3356, 1/27/86). It was activated under subzone procedures during 1987,
and is seeking this expansion authority prior to reactivation. The plant
(4,500 employees) is used to produce a wider range of information
processing equipment and components, and IBM requests that its subzone
authority be extended to include the new activity, as well as planned
activity. The plant's produce lines now include printed circuit boards,
electronic logic cards, special- purpose information processing equipment
for the financial industry, bar code readers, modems, microcode loaded
diskettes, and physical and chemical analysis computers.

Foreign materials account for some 18 percent of the value of the finished
equipment and components including monitors, keyboards, cathode ray tubes,
dot matrix printers, magnetic disk drives, power supplies, modems, testers,
magnetic disks and diskettes, resistors, capacitors, transistors, printed
circuits, switching apparatus and connectors, electronic integrated
circuits, wire and cable, insulators and fittings, fuses, certain articles
of plastic and rubber, fasteners, hangars, screws, bolts, and bearings.
Certain components and subassemblies produced at the Charlotte plant are
shipped to other IBM plants, and some 25 percent of the finished equipment
is exported.

Zone procedures would exempt IBM from Customs duty payments on foreign
parts that are used in production for export. On its domestic sales, it
would be able to choose the duty rates that apply to finished products (0.0
to 10.0 percent, averaging 4.9 percent). The duty rates on the foreign
components range from 0.0 to 14.0 percent. The application indicates that
the savings will help improve the plant's international competitiveness.

The application also requests authority to expand the subzone to include
sites for three related operations (proposed sites 2, 3, and 4) in the
Charlotte area which perform contract services for IBM related to
manufacturing at its Charlotte plant: Site 2 (4 acres)--warehousing,
testing and pre-assembly facility operated by Atlantic Design Company, 5020
W.T. Harris Boulevard, Mecklenburg County, 4 miles north of Charlotte; Site
3 (23 acres)--warehousing, testing and assembly/manufacturing facility
operated by Taltronics Corporation, 404 Armour Street, Davidson,
Mecklenburg County, some 14 miles north of Charlotte; and, Site 4 (18
acres)--warehousing, testing, and production- related facility operated by
Atlantic Design Company, 5601 Wilkinson Boulevard, Charlotte, north of the
Douglas Municipal Airport.

In accordance with the Board's regulations, an examiners committee has been
appointed to investigate the application and report to the Board. The
committee consists of: Dennis Puccinelli (Chairman), Foreign-Trade Zones
Staff, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, DC 20230; Howard Cooperman,
Regional Director, Inspection and Control, U.S. Customs Service, Southeast
Region, 909 SE. First Avenue, Miami, Florida 33131-2595; and Colonel W.
Scott Tulloch, District Engineer, U.S. Army Engineer District Wilmington,
P.O. Box 1890, Wilmington, NC 28402-1890. Comments concerning the proposed
subzone are invited in writing from interested parties. They should be
addressed to the Board's Executive Secretary at the address below and
postmarked on or before September 12, 1991.

A copy of the application is available for public inspection at each of the
following locations:
Office of the Port Director,
U.S. Customs Service, P.O. Box 19369,
1825 Crossbeam Road,
Charlotte, NC 28219.

Office of the Executive Secretary,
Foreign-Trade Zones Board,
U.S. Department of Commerce,
14th & Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, room 3716,
Washington, DC 20230.

Dated: July 19, 1991.

John J. Da Ponte, Jr.,

Executive Secretary.

[FR Doc. 91-17807 Filed 7-25-91; 8:45 am]