News & Events

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a notice announcing the initiation of a review to consider designating the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as a Generalized System of Preferences beneficiary developing country (BDC). The Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) has initiated the review in order to make a recommendation to the President as [...]

Brief 10 + 2 Overview/Update Proposed Rule published – January 2, 2008 Comment Period Ended – March 18, 2008 Currently – CBP is reviewing comments Final rule should be published this summer Estimate 90 days for implementation Estimate implementation around Sept to Oct 2008 Estimated to have a year of informed compliance Now more than [...]

During the May 9, 2008 meeting of the Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Related Homeland Security Functions (COAC), CBP officials discussed a variety of issues related to CBP’s proposed rule to require Security Filing (SF) information from importers and additional information from carriers (10+2) for vessel [...]

The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program (i.e., A, A*, and A+) for most beneficiary countries, i.e., other than those listed as African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) beneficiary countries, will expire on December 31, 2008, unless a law extending it is enacted. Non-AGOA GSP beneficiary countries include Argentina, Brazil, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Philippines, [...]

The Commerce Department has announced its finding that, after reviewing the second six months of data from its antidumping monitoring program for certain apparel imports from Vietnam, there is insufficient evidence to warrant self-initiating an AD investigation. Insufficient Evidence of Dumping in the Five Monitored Apparel Groups Commerce examined import data for five different textile [...]

The Office of Textiles and Apparel has posted its monthly monitoring data for certain apparel products imported from Vietnam for February 2008. The International Trade Administration is monitoring these product categories to determine if the import data would support self-initiation of an antidumping duty investigation. (Note that no textiles or apparel from Vietnam are subject [...]

According to a notice posted to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s Web site, as of April 1, 2008, China’s General Administration of Customs will implement a new categorization system under which consignors and consignees of imports and exports, as well as customs agents, are classified into five categories – AA, A, B, C and [...]

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a fact sheet announcing that due to the high-risk nature of imports of textile and apparel products, CBP has designated the industry as a \\\”priority trade issue\\\” for fiscal year 2008. (According to CBP sources, the textile and apparel industry has been a priority trade issue for the [...]

USTR Lists the Country/Tariff Number Pairs That May Lose/Gain GSP on July 1st Due to CNLs. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has published a notice announcing the availability of 2007 full calendar year import statistics relating to the Generalized System of Preferences Competitive Needs Limitations (CNLs) for the 2007 GSP Annual Review. USTR [...]

A proposed change in rules by Customs and Border Protection could result in importers paying higher duties for goods they purchase through multi-sale transactions overseas. The proposed “Sold for Exportation to the United States” rule would eliminate “first sale” as the basis for valuation, for example, the price a foreign intermediary pays a manufacturer, before [...]