U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated draft ACE Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) Chapter on Participating Goverment Agencies, which is referred to by ITDS as a "draft implementation guide." In addition, a related Appendix T containing the associated Code Tables (the codes and qualifiers for the PGA Message Set) has also been posted. The codes in Appendix T include those for the Lacey Act, Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), as well as Food and Drug Affirmation of Compliance Codes.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that registration is now open for CBP's free importer webinar on the new AM-100 Courtesy Notice of Liquidation report available in the ACE Portal. The webinar will include running and modifying the AM-100 report and saving it to one's favorites, modifying an existing account management report with data objects from the new Liquidation Header Details sub-folder, creating a report from scratch using the new Liquidation Header Details sub-folder and scheduling the report.
On September 27, U.S. Customs and Border Protection informed all filers that there was an issue with users creating and viewing Rail Line Release Entry Banks in the ACE Portal. CBP has now issued CSMS #11-000239 stating that the issue has been resolved and users may once again create and view Rail Line Release Entry Banks. CBP adds that as it continues to prepare for e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail, there may be intermittent outages when filers are unable to create and view their Rail Line Release Entry Banks.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a document that provides additional guidance on the Entry Summary capabilities deployed in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) in 2009. This guidance covers release on an ACE entry summary and receiving information on entry summaries filed in ACE.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has re-posted the following links on ACE e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (M1), which was deployed on August 27, 2011: (1) Information Notice (here); (2) Web-Based Training (here); (3) In-Bond Authorization (here); and (4) Creating and Maintaining Entry Banks (here).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials recently stated that the agency is "on track" to fully deploy e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (M1) at the end of January 2012. The agency has done a lot of testing and is ahead of schedule internally to meet this deadline. In addition, a group of three carriers is waiting for the go-ahead to send manifests in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), which can be set up in a three-week time frame.
According to officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency is continuing to roll out new Importer Security Filing (10+2) capabilities every month. For example, in the next several months, ACE Portal ISF reports will be married to the ACE Portal importer reports for entry summaries, so all that information will be in one big report and the information from each report will not have to be correlated.
The Website for the International Trade Data System has posted (1) an updated ACE Portal Access Application (this form may be used for PGAs applying for access to ACE as well as to make any changes or updates to an existing PGA user account in ACE) and (2) an updated PGA Roster.
The International Trade Data System has issued a draft report for trade comment by November 15, 2011, 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, to improve product visibility at international borders. The report shows that the three product sets on which the pilots focused - toys, cut flowers, and meat and poultry1 -- all benefited from the use of such data and could save importers millions of dollars. The report also states that a new ACE PGA Message Set will be implemented in 2012 to pass e-commerce data to participating government agencies (PGAs).
CBP has posted the following presentations, draft COAC recommendations, etc. for its COAC meeting on October 4, 2011: