U.S. Customs and Border Protection for field operations at the Port of New York/Newark has issued an Informational Pipeline to inform the trade community of some logistical issues it has encountered since the commencement of the consolidated Centralized Examination Station (CES) process on January 9, 2012. The Pipeline states that incorrect bill of lading (BOL) transmissions have caused cargo for examination to be sent to erroneous Centralized Examination Station (CES) sites.
The South Korean Customs Service (KCS) has reset the launch date for its Advance Manifest System (AMS) to spring/summer 2012. Although the KCS Web site states that its AMS would be launched on December 1, 2011, a number of major carriers indicate that AMS has been postponed until April 1, 2012 for air/ocean exports from Korea and June 1, 2012 for air imports to Korea (some sources indicate this date also applies to ocean imports to Korea, some do not)1. Highlights of AMS guidelines issued by Korean Customs in September 2011 include:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has recently revised information on its website to indicate that the Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEEs) for the pharmaceuticals and electronics industries have been renamed as the "Industry Integration Center for Pharmaceuticals, Health & Chemicals CEE" and the "Information Technology and Consumer Electronics CEE" to show an upcoming expansion of their product scope. Sources add that the Pharmaceuticals CEE will be expanded to cover all chemicals and health equipment (e.g. wheelchairs). CBP also plans to create CEEs for an additional eight industries over the next three years.
This is a reminder that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a frequently asked questions and answers document to provide guidance to licensed Customs brokers on the submission of the Triennial Status Report and fee. The next triennial status report, in addition to the $100 fee, should be filed by February 29, 2012.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted presentation slides on its "Trade Transformation" initiatives for 21st century trade. Within the slides, CBP states that it seeks to improve cargo security while increasing trade competitiveness by fully aggregating risk management. According to CBP, it will accomplish this by leveraging end-to-end visibility of accounts that captures a holistic view of the global supply chain through the use of its "BEST" goals.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which began processing GSP duty refunds in early December for entries made during the period of January 1, 2011 through November 4, 2011, now states that refunds have been issued for all automatic refund requests (i.e., for entries that were filed duty-paid via ABI with the SPI "A"), except for ones that "failed" this refund process, which are being sent to the ports where entry was made to be manually processed. The target date for CBP completing the refund process for the SPI "A" failed entries is the end of February 2012.
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 presentation slides on its "Trade Transformation" initiatives for 21st century trade. Within the slides, CBP states that it seeks to improve cargo security while increasing trade competitiveness by fully aggregating risk management. This will be accomplished by leveraging end-to-end visibility of accounts that captures a holistic view of the global supply chain. CBP also outlines how it will accomplish this through its BEST goals: (1) Better Targeting; (2) Expedite Trade; (4) Segment Risk; (5) and Transaction Savings and through its various trade initiatives. These initiatives include Air Cargo Advance Screening (ACAS), Importer Security Filing (ISF), Simplified Entry/summary, ACE, Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEE), and the role of the broker. CBP also maps out the supply chain for each mode of transportation and ACE.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Information and Technology has posted an updated list of companies/persons offering data processing services to the trade community for the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) as of January 12, 2012.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that the 2012 annual user fee of $138 for each customs broker permit and national permit held by an individual, partnership, association, or corporation is due by January 20, 2012.