U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued CSMS #11-000270 to announce that the 2011 ACE Customer Satisfaction Survey due date is extended (for the second time) until midnight November 2, 2011. CBP states that its goal is to obtain a response level that would be more statistically significant than in past years. This will ensure that the key issues identified in the survey are the areas that need attention to improve ACE. The survey is voluntary and anonymous and will only take between 5-10 minutes to complete, unless comments are provided to the survey, which CBP encourages. The survey may be accessed here.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a memorandum on the renewal of the Andean Trade Preference Act and the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act on November 5, 2011 and the procedures for duty refunds for merchandise entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption during the period in which the ATPA and ATPDEA programs lapsed (February 13, 2011 through November 4, 2011).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a memorandum on the renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences program on November 5, 2011 and the procedures for duty refunds for entries filed during the period in which GSP lapsed (January 1, 2011 through November 4, 2011).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.

Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for October 17-21, 2011 in case they were missed last week.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is announcing that Participating Government Agency (PGA) indicator programming has been added to ACS to enhance its ABI HTS Update and Query functionality. However, no tariff numbers have a PGA indicator yet (for those tariff numbers that call for one), so there will be no "VL" or "WL" records sent out to indicate that a tariff number has a PGA requirement.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has newly posted the recordings and presentation slides for two webinars, one on ACE Courtesy Notice of Liquidation (October 12, 2011) and the other on Practical Suggestions to Mitigate Cargo Security Risks (October 6, 2011). These webinars are part of a series of live trade outreach webinars that CBP is hosting. Each webinar is recorded and made available for subsequent on-demand viewing. Topics of previous webinars available for viewing include the role of the broker, account management restructuring, ACE Post Summary Corrections, simplified entry and financial processes, etc. Another announcement regarding the ACE Courtesy Notice Report was announced in CSMS #11-000265, available here.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued notice that it is programming ABI for the new .3464% Merchandise Processing Fee for formal entries that is effective as of October 1, 2011. The agency states that it will give the trade approximately one week’s notice before ABI starts requiring the higher MPF. Officials expect to generate bills for the period that began on October 1 through the day before the higher rate is implemented, to collect the difference between the old and new rates for that time period.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials stated at the September 2011 annual NCBFAA conference that the agency is currently using the Document Imaging System internally for emailed single transaction bonds. However, they are working with select individuals to develop a plan to expand its use, and hope to issue a Federal Register notice announcing a pilot in a few months on regularly accepting STBs via DIS.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its "Using the ACE Reports Tool" user guide document, which provides instructions for importer, broker and surety ACE portal account types on running ACE reports for truck carriers. With this update, CBP has added AM-100 to the list of available reports contained in Appendix A of the document. AM-100 (for importers only) is the ACE Courtesy Notice of Liquidation report which displays liquidation information for two weeks in the future, similar to information previously mailed to the importer on the CF 4333A.