U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that it is still accepting registrations for its March 6-8, 2012 seminar at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) meeting in Arlington, VA that will cover programming changes for existing and new functionality scheduled to be delivered as part of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). The seminar will target ocean and rail software developers and ABI software developers. Presentations will focus on: (i) Changes to CAMIR and X12 message formats required for the deployment of ACE Ocean and Rail Manifest, mandatory ABI changes required for this deployment, and the decommissioning of the ACS Ocean and Rail Manifest system; and (ii) Current and future ACE deployments including ACE Entry Summary Filing, Post Summary Corrections, PGA Message Set, Document Image System, Simplified Entry/Cargo Release, and Export Manifest. Registration is available at http://www.ncbfaa.org/.
On February 21, 2012, the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) met in Washington D.C. to hear updates on ACE and other projects from government officials as well as reports from its various committees. With respect to ACE, government officials announced that (1) CBP will have six major ACE drops over next 6-8 months, (2) CBP is still looking at how to fix the ACE summary “edits” problem, (3) ACE is critically short on funding for further development, (4) ACE will soon be reviewed by DHS from a financial investment perspective, and (5) the main software developer’s contract has run its term. Attendees also gave an update on ACE Simplified Entry and Summary, and ACE for exports.
The Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport has issued a Public Bulletin announce that it will hold an updated Steel Identification, Classification, and Trade Law seminar on March 27-29, 2012. The seminar program, presented by technical, commercial, and legal experts from the steel industry, aims to increase the knowledge of the trade and the Customs broker community. It will include material on fraud, circumvention, evasion, and current issues. The seminar will be held at the Port of Long Beach Harbor Department Administration Building, 6th floor auditorium, 925 Harbor Plaza, Long Beach, CA. Registration is required by March 5, 2012 to attend this free seminar. Public Bulletin #LA12-004 and seminar registration form are available via email by sending a request to documents@brokerpower.com.
The Department of Homeland Security has released a report on its accomplishments in 2011, in connection with a speech by Secretary Janet Napolitano on the progress DHS has made that year. Among other accomplishments, the report notes that (1) the Container Security Initiative is now active at more than 50 overseas ports, and (2) the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) has grown to more than 10,200 Certified Partners worldwide.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted another updated version of its February 2012 "Trade Transformation" document. The revised document no longer states that testing of the Simplified Entry process in the air cargo environment will begin mid-February followed by production in late February to early March. The updated document also no longer states that the first Simplified Entry is expected to be filed (by the trade) in March 2012. The revised version has also added back in a listing of the locations for the two established and seven planned industry Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEEs).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that it will present upcoming programming changes for existing and new functionality scheduled to be delivered as part of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) meeting on March 6-8, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. The seminar will target ocean and rail software developers and ABI participants. Presentations over the three days will focus on: (i) Message formats for ACE M1 Ocean/Rail Manifest and the trade pilot; (ii) New IT initiatives including Export Manifest, Cargo Release, Simplified Entry, Document Image System (DIS), PGA Message Set, and ABI changes for M1; (iii) ACE entry summary and related documentation overviews such as ACS to ACE changes, Entry Summary Create/Update and Status Notification, Post Summary Corrections, etc. Registration is available at http://www.ncbfaa.org/.
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 February 2012 user guides for the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) on antidumping and countervailing duty cases and messages, blanket declaration records (e.g. importer certifying statement, NAFTA certificate of origin), and entry banks for BRASS, FAST, and Rail Line Release.
In June 2011, the Canadian Border Services Agency announced the phased-in timeframe for increasing the use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) at time of interim accounting (PARS and RMD requests). CBSA has reposted Customs Notice 11-004 as effective February 1, EDI must be used for PARS/RMD releases of up to 500 invoice lines, up from the 250 invoice line requirement that took effect on September 1, 2011.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that it will conduct the next Customs Broker License Examination on Monday, April 2, 2012.