U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the materials from its March 6-8, 2012 Trade Software Developer Technical Seminar at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) meeting. During the seminar, CBP officials discussed programming changes for existing and new functionality scheduled to be delivered as part of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). Access all of the seminar materials here.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is announcing that in approximately 6 months certain ABI applications will be transitioned to ACE as part of the ACE M1 Ocean and Rail Deployment. When this transition takes place, filers will no longer be able to transmit or receive data for the following ABI capabilities using ACS: (1) In-Bond transactions for ocean, rail, and truck using ABI Application Identifiers QP/WP, (2) Status Notifications using ABI Application Identifier NS, and (3) Broker Download information using ABI Application Identifier BD.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced the issuance of Harmonized System Update 2013 on changes to the 2012 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS). This update was created on March 15, 2012 and contains 11,6214 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 23,379 harmonized tariff records.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has revised and expanded its 2005 “Guidance for Certificates of Reimbursement” for antidumping (AD) duties in order to provide updated information on protests, the option for paperless filing using ACE, and provide additional information regarding blanket certificates, related parties, deemed liquidations, and certificates for companion countervailing (CV) duties.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted changes to the Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) since January 2012, which include the following changes related to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS or KFTA):
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has not yet completed its programming to allow entry summary claims for Korea Free Trade Agreement (KFTA or KORUS) duty benefits to be filed using the ACS Automated Broker Interface (ABI). In the meantime, CBP sources and the agency's KFTA instructions list several alternatives to use for entry, and well as a post importation claim option (and form). KFTA takes effect for qualifying goods entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after March 15, 2012.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a document on the trade benefits from the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). ACE is the commercial trade processing system being developed to become the "single window" through which international traders will electronically provide all information needed by federal agencies for the import of cargo. CBP states that the benefits of ACE continue to grow as new capabilities are developed and deployed. The document lists the trade benefits based on functionality currently available in ACE and are organized by trade sector in addition to, in some cases, ACE Portal role.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection for Field Operations at the Port of New York/Newark has issued an Informational Pipeline notifying the trade community that palletizing containerized rice shipments at the time of export to the U.S. will help expedite any CBP Agriculture Inspections at the Port of New York/Newark for Khapra Beetle.
Officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently stated that importers who have not received a Generalized System of Preferences SPI “A” refund by March 31, 2012 should assume that the claim “fell through the cracks” and file a written refund request by the April 18, 2012 deadline to ensure those refunds are received.