(Washington, DC, November 21, 2006) — Delegate to Congress Donna M. Christensen announced today that she has written to the U.S. Department of Commerce urging them to eliminate the value limits for watches assembled in the US Virgin Islands.  Currently watches assembled in the territory from component parts cannot have a value of more than $35 for watch movements and $800 for watches in order to receive the “watch program” duty exemption benefits.   However, earlier this year the USVI Watch & Jewelry Manufacturers Association wrote to the Department of Commerce to ask them to reexamine the current value limits in view of the fact that the cost of gold has more than doubled in the past year.

“For many decades now, Congress has strongly supported economic growth and employment in the Virgin Islands through the promotion of watch production in the Territory, which is our Territory's largest light manufacturing industry and an important source of much-needed, high-skill and high-wage employment in the Islands,” Christensen said.  “I strongly urge the Departments of Commerce and the Interior to eliminate the watch and watch movement value limits from the regulations thereby further enhancing recent Congressional efforts to promote and grow watch production and watch employment in the Virgin Islands.”   

The Virgin Islands watch industry which dates back to 1959, has faced a number of very serious challenges in recent years, including multiple devastating hurricanes over the last two decades and, more recently, aggressive competition from low-wage foreign producers.  In response to these additional challenges, Congress has taken a number of steps to add further flexibility and certainty to the insular watch program so that it can continue to provide good jobs to Virgin Islands workers.  In 1999, Congress extended benefits under the PIC Program to insular manufacturing of fine jewelry – production operations that can readily employ skilled watch assembly workers.  In 2004, Congress also broadened and simplified the program’s wage credits, and in order to provide greater certainty for watch program participants and new investors, extended the Program through the year 2015 and enacted an innovative mechanism to ensure that insular watch production will be held harmless from the effects of future worldwide reductions in watch duties.