Now that all of the industry-focused Centers of Excellence and Expertise are fully operational, members of the Importer Self Assessment and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs should get a "higher level of service," the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) Trade Modernization Subcommittee said in a list of draft recommendations (here). The recommendation is among a wide range of recommendations planned for discussion at the COAC meeting on April 27 (see 1604250011). CBP's treatment of trusted traders should include "enhanced communication, accessibility and responsiveness (including updates and trends to increase or maintain compliance) with their National Account Manager (NAM) or other Center representative," the subcommittee said.

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:

CBP posted its agenda and some other agency documents for the upcoming Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting on April 27. Among the posted items are a detailed look at planned recommendations for changes to customs broker regulations (here). The document includes a list of the proposed changes with any new or deleted language highlighted some brief descriptions of the logic behind the proposals. A member of the COAC broker regulations working group recently previewed many of the recommendations (see 1604220023). The agenda is (here).

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:

Filers of entries for several partner government agencies will now be able to submit agency-required forms through the document imaging system alongside their ACE cargo release submissions until ACE filing becomes mandatory for those agencies, said CBP in a CSMS message sent April 22 (here). “During the course of their pilots and until the ACE mandatory dates,” currently scheduled for this summer, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service "have agreed to allow" their forms to be uploaded in DIS, instead of submitted on paper, "in order for CBP to verify the PGA requirements have been met," said CBP.

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Big changes are on the way for protest filing and reconciliation as part of the deployment of ACE post-summary capabilities currently set for October, said Celeste Catano of software developer Kewill during the annual conference of the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America on April 19. Alongside new ACE systems for liquidation and drawback, changes to how protests are filed will allow lawyers to submit and keep track of protests, while increased automation of the reconciliation process will make life easier for brokers in several ways, said Catano.

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The head of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee broker regulations working group previewed more than 30 recommendations that are set to be considered at the April 27 COAC meeting. Cindy Allen, the leader of the working group and CEO of Trade Force Multiplier, discussed the recommendations during a panel at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference on April 20. Already OK'd by the Trade Modernization subcommittee, the recommendations must still be approved by the full COAC before they are finalized and given to CBP, she said. As a result, there's a chance that some of the language could still change, Allen said.

CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Import filers could be in for an eventful summer, with ACE system slowdowns and CBP communication problems compounding problems related to an already crowded slate of ACE deadlines, said several software developers and a customs broker during the annual conference of the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America on April 19. After a slow implementation process over nearly a decade and a relatively successful transition for entry summary on March 31 (see 1604050034), the pace is set to increase markedly as 19 PGAs join the two already online at as yet undetermined dates.

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Filing of Food and Drug Administration entries in the ACE continues its rapid rise, with the latest data from the agency showing a “high percentage” of filers using ACE and the number of entries filed in the system “drastically” increasing since January, said Dominic Veneziano, director of FDA’s Division of Import Operations, at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference on April 19.