Brokers Seen as Vital to CEEs as Some Industry Concern Subsides
Brokers will continue to be an integral part of the trade process even as the role of the CEEs increases, said Leon Hayward, director of the pharmaceuticals CEE, while speaking on a panel at the CBP Trade Symposium March 7. The companies that are involved in developing the CEEs have told Hayward “no matter how much this kind of stuff changes, we’re still going to use our brokers to file our entries” because “we don’t want to do that ourselves,” he said. That's been true at Nike, which is participating in a CEE, said Matt Varner, the company's director of trade operations. There is still a constant line of communication between Nike and its brokers , he said.
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Some of the initial concern within the brokerage industry surrounding the CEEs has subsided, said Mary Jo Muoio of OHL Trade Services, who spoke at the symposium on a different panel. "When the CEEs first began to be announced, there was some trepidation on the part of the broker community, just because its a new process and we have to figure out who are we going to talk to, where are our papers when required going to be sent," she said. Since then, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America set up a subcommittee on the CEEs that has regularly scheduled conversations with customs "to talk about some of the nuts and the bolts, roll-up-your-sleeves, how do we make this happen for everybody," she said. CBP has also set up a CEEs working group that includes brokers to review the operational issues. "Its been rather painless and rather positive," said Muoio.
Still, there's work to be done to better consolidate all of CBP's filing systems, said Muoio. "We look forward to the day when there's full realization of the CEEs, because sometimes I feel like were playing twister, and I have one foot in ACS, and one foot in ACE, and one hand in the CEEs, and another hand in traditional port processing," she said. "I can have one customer that's got my hand in all the different places. We look forward to the day when we have basically one model that fits all."