The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will allow imports of fresh bananas from the Philippines to the continental U.S., effective Feb. 7, with some conditions. The bananas will have to be produced in accordance with a systems approach that will include requirements for importation of commercial consignments, monitoring of fruit flies to establish low-prevalence places of production, harvesting only of hard green bananas, and inspection for quarantine pests by the Filipino national plant protection organization. The bananas will also have to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate that says they were grown, packed, and inspected and found to be free of quarantine pests in accordance with the requirements.
The Foreign Trade Zones Board issued the following notices for Feb. 6:
Rebecca Blank’s title is now “Deputy Secretary of Commerce” instead of acting secretary, although she “continues to perform the duties of Secretary,” according to her biography on the Commerce Department website. Blank had held the title of acting secretary since former Secretary John Bryson’s resignation in June 2012. The Vacancies Reform Act only allows unappointed officials to hold “acting” status for 210 days, with some exceptions, although Commerce declined to say if the title change was related to the law. David Aguilar of CBP went from acting commissioner to deputy commissioner in August because of the Vacancies Reform Act time limit (see ITT’s Online Archives 12091219 for summary).
The Bureau of Industry and Security renewed its Temporary Denial Order against Mahan Airways and Zarand Aviation for another 180 days Feb. 4, and added Mehdi Bahrami as a party. The TDO was last renewed in August, and was set to expire. The parties for which export privileges are denied by this order include: Mahan Airways; Zarand Aviation; Gatewick LLC; Pejman Mahmood Kosarayanifard; Mahmoud Amini; Kerman Aviation, Sirjanco Trading; Ali Eslamian; Mahan Air General Trading LLC; Skyco (UK) Ltd.; Equipco (UK) Ltd; and Mehdi Bahrami.
The Court of International Trade at last sustained the final results of the 2007 antidumping duty administrative review of wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890), after the International Trade Administration lowered Chinese company Orient International Holding Shanghai Foreign Trade Co.’s AD rate to 83.55 percent. The final results had been the subject of three court remands. During the administrative review, Orient withdrew from participation, so the ITA found the company to be non-cooperative and assigned it an adverse facts available AD rate. But CIT in 2011 found the ITA’s original AD rate of 216.01 percent to be unreasonably high. On remand, the ITA lowered the rate to 130.81 percent, but the court said the ITA cherry-picked data, and the rate still wasn’t realistic. This time CIT said the new 83.55 percent rate is justified.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website Feb. 5, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)
The International Trade Commission is publishing notices in the Feb. 5 Federal Register on the following AD/CV injury, Section 337 patent, and other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will appear in another ITT article):
The International Trade Administration published notices in the Feb. 5 Federal Register on the following AD/CV proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The International Trade Administration issued the preliminary results of its administrative review of the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890). The ITA said the two mandatory respondents, Maoji and Huansheng, did not cooperate in the review, and so it assigned the two companies to the China-wide entity. Four other companies did not qualify for a separate rate, the ITA said, and were also assigned to the China-wide entity. These preliminary results are not in effect. The ITA may modify them in the final results of this review and change the estimated AD cash deposit rate for these companies.
On Feb. 4 the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of: