October 10, 2008

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) says it supports the U.S. Department of Commerce’s new export control procedure for Intra-Company Transfers, or ICTs, which are exports from one part of a company to another part of the same company located abroad.

According to NAM President John Engler, “This new exception will allow U.S. manufacturers to transfer technology, items, and personnel license-free within their own corporate families, eliminating the need for thousands of individual export licenses.” He added that, “Trade from one part of a corporate family to another part is very secure, and needs to be treated differently from transactions involving overseas purchasers.”

Prior to the new rule, U.S. companies had to obtain a separate export license for every shipment of export-controlled items to their branches overseas, “even though they were shipping basically the same things to the same branches over and over again,” which caused delays and needless costs for U.S. high-tech exporters, said Engler.