U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message correcting two previously issued messages on the upcoming ABI system requirements for filing U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement (UCFTA) and U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SFTA) claims.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) frequently issues notices on antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued and neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period.

The State Department's Washington File has reported that trade officials from the 34 democratic nations of the Western Hemisphere were unable to craft a common and balanced set of rights and obligations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and agreed to recess on February 6, 2004. According to the Washington File, a U.S. trade official has stated that FTAA negotiations are set to resume in March. (Washington File Pub, dated 02/09/04, available at http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=February&x=20040209170029ASrelliM0.971554&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site various materials related to the January 27-29, 2004 meeting of the Trade Support Network (TSN).

On May 20, 2003, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) issued a proposed rule to require imported solid wood packing material (SWPM) to be either heat treated or fumigated with methyl bromide, as well as marked, prior to importation, in accordance with an international standard entitled "Guidelines for Regulating Wood Packaging Material in International Trade" that was approved by the Interim Commission on Phytosanitary Measures of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) on March 15, 2002.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a press release announcing that on February 9, 2004, the EPA Administrator joined 52 freight shippers and carriers to promote the SmartWay Transport Partnership (SmartWay). The EPA has also posted information on SmartWay to its Web site.

The 2004 Schedule B is now available on the Bureau of Census' (Census) Web site at www.census.gov/foreign-trade/schedules/b/index.html for downloading, searching and browsing.

(a) These four companies each have a de minimis AD rate (Ferrara: 0.24%, Lensi: 0.36%, Pagani: 0.21%, and Pallante: 0.12%); no cash deposits will be collected although suspension of liquidation will continue.

¹ The ITA states that only the 2002 final results CV rate will affect the CV cash deposit rate for subject merchandise on and after the publication of the final results of these four reviews.