The Commerce Department's Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) has issued its Major Shippers Textiles and Apparel Report, which contains selected general import statistics by date of import from the Census Bureau through November 30, 2003 by country and category (including merged and part category).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP's) Office of Information and Technology has posted a notice to its Web site containing (a) a list, updated as of January 14, 2004, of companies/persons offering Sea Automated Manifest System (AMS) data processing services to the trade community, and (b) the Sea AMS Respondent Checklist, as follows:
On January 22, 2004, the Senate passed the conference report for H.R. 2673, the fiscal year (FY) 2004 omnibus appropriations bill for a number of federal government departments and agencies, by a vote of 65 to 28.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site its weekly quota commodity report as of January 20, 2004. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cocoa, tobacco, certain Jordan Free Trade Agreement (JFTA), Chile Free Trade Agreement (UCFTA), and Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SFTA) TRQs, etc. This report also includes TRQs on certain HTS Chapter 52 cotton, upland cotton under HTS Chapter 99, the UCFTA, SFTA, CBTPA, AGOA, ATPDEA, and NAFTA tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics under HTS 9902.51.11 & 9902.51.12, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 01/20/04, available at http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
According to Journal of Commerce Online, as part of the Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union address, House Minority Leader Pelosi called for the physical inspection of all ocean containers entering the U.S., charging that the Bush administration's inspection standard is too low to protect the U.S. from terrorism. (JoC Online, 01/21/04, www.joc.com )
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.
On January 22, 2004, the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) published a notice denying a petition submitted by Alarmex Holdings Group, Inc. which had alleged that certain printed, 100% rayon, herringbone fabric, of 220 g/m2 fabric weight, of 20's singles spun rayon yarn, of 100 X 64 construction, classified in HTS 5516.14.00, for use in apparel articles, cannot be supplied by the domestic industry in commercial quantities in a timely manner.
In October 2003, the Coast Guard issued six final rules which adopted, with changes, a series of July 2003 interim rules that promulgated maritime security requirements mandated by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 (MTSA).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted a notice on its Web site announcing that the next Customs Broker Licensure Examination will be held on Monday, April 5, 2004.
At its January 21, 2004 meeting, the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) considered a petition from the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America, Inc. (NCBFAA) requesting that the FMC amend its non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) bonding provisions to reflect a recent U.S.-China maritime agreement.