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

CBP’s pilot test of electronic export ocean manifests (CBP Form 1302A) using the CBP Document Image System (DIS) will be expanded in mid-August to cover all East Coast ports, as well as the ports of Chicago, Buffalo, and Detroit, said Cynthia Allen of CBP’s ACE Business Office. The pilot, which began March 28, included eight ports in the Southeast and was based at CBP’s Atlanta office. The 18 participating carriers were given the option of entirely electronic filing of their ocean export manifests. “One carrier has calculated savings of $20,000 per month” due to the pilot, said Allen.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is seeking volunteers to participate in the document imaging system trial, said CBP in a CSMS message. The pilot allows importers and brokers that use ACE to submit official CBP documents and specified Participating Government Agency (PGA) forms via the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

CBP will be deploying enhancements to the Electronic Invoice Program and Remote Location Filng programs in the fall, the agency said in a CSMS message July 19. The updates will allow Antidumping (AD)/Countervailing (CVD) consumption entry summaries (Entry Type 03) to be filed in ACE. Currently, RLF only includes filing for entry types 01 and 11.

“Export Control Reform has not stalled…and our goal is in sight” said Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro in his opening remarks at the Bureau of Industry and Security’s annual Update 2012 Conference on Export Controls and Policy. “Come January, we will either have crossed the goal line,” or whoever replaces the officials in the next administration will “dive into the end zone and do a touchdown dance,” he said. BIS Under Secretary Eric Hirschhorn also addressed recent Congressional activity on Export Control Reform (ECR) in his opening remarks, and outlined the Obama administration’s second-term priorities for ECR.

CBP's ACE team is continuing to work with the International Trade Data System (ITDS) and Office of Field Operations (OFO) to determine which forms will be added for use within the Document Image System (DIS), which is now in the first phase of a pilot. CBP released a series of questions and answers on the program. Phase 1 of DIS include documents for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and National Marine Fisheries Service/ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NMFS/NOAA). CBP hasn't said when the next phase will start.

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

CBP's Office of Information and Technology posted a list of companies/persons who have developed software applications for ACE electronic truck manifest and have been through CBP's testing process. Inclusion on the list doesn't constitute an endorsement by CBP about the nature, extent or quality of the services, which may be provided, it cautioned. CBP noted there are many additional authorized ACE electronic truck manifest filing services that aren't listed. The list is limited to the primary developers of software that assembles and formats data for transmission to CBP. It does not include authorized data processing services that incorporate, use or market the software products of the listed companies/persons to provide ACE electronic truck manifest filing services.

CBP released more details on the trade fair in Seattle scheduled for July 19. CBP has invited government agencies that regulate trade to participate, it said. There's no registration necessary, though IDs will be required.

CBP said most ABI transactions submitted to the ACE Certification environment since the June 29 ACE Certification deployment are not processing. The exception is ABI in-bond transactions (Application identifiers QP and WP) which have been processing as expected, said CBP. The issue has not impacted ACE Production CBP is currently working on a fix but it will not be ready to deploy until early next week, it said in a July 6 CSMS message. As soon as the deployment date and time for the fix is established, a CSMS message will be issued, said CBP.