U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other officials have discussed the agency's plans to automate the export process at the October 4, 2011 COAC1 meeting and the September and October Trade Support Network (TSN) monthly committee meetings. During the events, officials stated that in order to bring export filing into ACE, CBP has been working with Participating Government Agencies and the trade community to develop user requirements for an automated export manifest in each transport mode. CBP is also working on an interim export manifest as a paperless solution for the ocean mode.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for November 14-18, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.
The Trade Support Network has issued its October 2011 Monthly Committee Report, which indicates that discussions are taking place on issues related to the automation of the export manifest in ACE, as well as using ACE Post Summary Correction (PSC) for drawback. The October report also notes that the implementation plan for ACE e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (MI) has run into issues that must be resolved prior to opening the program for enrollment.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is announcing that the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (COAC) will meet on December 7, 2011 in Washington, D.C. There will be comment opportunities before and during the meeting, and the registration deadline to attend or listen to the webcast is December 5.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted its monthly Automated Commercial Environment Updates for November 2011. While the update lists new statistics showing that the number of ACE trade user accounts and the size of revenue collections via Periodic Monthly Statement (PMS) continue to grow, it also indicates that a number of due dates for ACE functionality have been pushed back to later dates or are no longer specified.
The Account Management Committee of the Trade Support Network (TSN) has submitted a Great Idea Form that asks U.S. Customs and Border Protection to allow importers to file Post Summary Corrections through the ACE Portal. This enhancement would restore to importers that are not self-filers the ability to file their own corrections for ACE entry summaries, a benefit which was taken away when PEAs were disallowed for ACE summaries. This enhancement could also replace the current paper process of receiving and processing PEAs for non-ACE entry summaries.
According to CBP officials, the upcoming ACE Simplified Entry Pilot, at this point, will exclude entries that have other government agency (OGA) requirements, such as Food and Drug Administration or Fish and Wildlife Service requirements, etc. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials also state that Simplified Entry will seek "best available" data that can be updated later. In addition, the submission of an ISF will still be required for the ocean mode, but the submission of ISF-like data will be voluntary for other modes.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has newly posted the recording and presentation slides for its October 24, 2011 webinar on the ITDS Product Information Committee's draft report on the results of three pilot studies conducted to validate the business case for using e-commerce data, such as global product numbers/codes and electronic product catalogs. This webinar is part of a series of live trade webinars that CBP is hosting. Each webinar is made available for subsequent on-demand viewing online. Topics of previous webinars include ACE Courtesy Notice of Liquidation, the role of the broker, simplified entry, ACE Post Summary Corrections, etc.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted documents on changes to the Customs and Trade Interface Requirements (CATAIR) regarding the PGA Message Set. Specifically, changes were made to the Chapter on Participating Government Agencies (PGA), which presents records that provide data to government agencies that will participate with modernization of the automated cargo systems. Changes were also made to Appendix T, which provides codes and qualifiers for the PGA Message Set.