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CBP Posts ACE Presentation From April 2005 Miami C-TPAT Seminar To its Web Site

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a presentation from the April 18-21, 2005 Supply Chain Security Training Seminar for certified Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) members held in Miami, FL.

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The following are "highlights" of the ACE presentation:

ACS Scheduled for Decommission in FY 2012

CBP notes that under its ACE program plan, ACE development is scheduled to be completed in fiscal year (FY) 2010, with deployment completed in FY 2011. According to CBP, the Automated Commercial System (ACS) and associated legacy systems are scheduled to be decommissioned in FY 2012.

Number of Activated ACE Accounts

According to CBP, there are 466 activated ACE accounts as of March 25, 2005, 56% of which are importers (262), with the remaining 44% (204) evenly split between brokers (102) and carriers (102). Of those 466 accounts, CBP notes that 97 have been approved for periodic payment. CBP notes that the total number of periodic payment statements issued in March 2005 was 31.

Schedule for ACE Components Becoming Operational

According to CBP, the expected schedule for the below-listed ACE components becoming operational is as follows:

ACE Component
S1 t - Screening foundation
S2 t - Targeting foundation
Release 5 - Account Revenue and Secure Trade Data
S3 t - Advanced targeting
Release 6 - E-Manifest: All Modes and Cargo Security
S4 t - Full Screening and Targeting
Release 7 - Exports and Cargo Control

t CBP has previously noted that it has augmented its ACE Release schedule with a set of comprehensive Screening and Targeting functions (S1-S4) which have been integrated into the ACE Program Plan so that CBP can provide cargo security support in parallel with the implementation of ACE cargo and trade processing releases.

ACE Importer and Broker Benefits

According to CBP, the following are ACE importer and broker benefits:

Move from a transaction-by-transaction payment process to an interest-free periodic monthly statement process for all ACE accounts

Pay for all shipments released during the previous calendar month by the 15th of the following month for all ACE accounts

Receive up to 45 days interest free float

Pay via Periodic Monthly Statement when broker is shown as the importer of record

View statement as it is being built

Select either a national or port statement

Create an account based on the company's organizational structure and restrict user access to any and all information in the account

Access more than 60 reports reflecting a company's compliance, transactional, and financial data

The ACE presentation also includes information on:

ACE/International Trade Data System (ITDS) overview

Statistics on ACE Periodic Monthly Statement

Status of ITDS

Characteristics of new ACE Program Plan

Capabilities and Development Periods for all of the ACE Releases

Overall ACE benefits

CBP's ACE presentation (dated 04/20/05) available at

http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/toolbox/about/modernization/supply_chain.ctt/supply_chain.pdf.