On June 4, 2012, the Foreign Agricultural Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued emails June 4, 2012, announcing changes to some Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service said the public meeting for the 35th Session or the Codex Alimentarius Commission will be June 5 in Washington, D.C. The public meeting will discuss U.S. draft positions for the items on the agenda for the Commission, including adoption of proposed standards and amendments to existing standards, the proposed revocation of existing standards, the approval of new work proposals and budgetary matters. The Commission will meet in Rome, Italy, July 2-7, 2012. Individuals may also participate via teleconference by calling 1-888-858-2144; Participant Code: 6208658. Agenda for the meeting with links to documents to be discussed available here.
Organic products certified in the U.S. or European Union may now be sold as organic in either market, under a new U.S.-EU equivalency partnership, announced the Department of Agriculture. The arrangement covers products exported from and certified in the U.S. or the EU only. All products traded under the partnership must be shipped with an organic import certificate, which shows the location where production occurred, identifies the organization that certified the organic product, and verifies that growers and handlers did not use prohibited substances and methods. In addition to certifying that the terms of the partnership were met, the certificates allow traded products to be tracked. According to USDA, U.S. crops produced using certain antibiotics and EU agricultural products derived from animals treated with antibiotics, as well as EU aquatic animals, are excepted from the agreement.
The International Trade Administration announced a trade mission to explore opportunities in the energy, renewable energy, infrastructure and safety and security technology sectors in Cairo, Egypt and Kuwait City, Kuwait, on March 10-14, 2013. The trade mission will include one-on-one business appointments with pre-screened potential buyers, agents, distributors and joint venture partners; meetings with government officials, chambers of commerce, and business groups; and networking receptions for companies interested in expansion into the North African and Middle Eastern markets. Meetings will be offered with government authorities that can address questions about policies, tariff rates, incentives, grid interconnection, regulation, etc. Recruitment for the mission will begin June 6 and conclude by December 14.
The Court of International Trade granted stays in six proceedings pending resolution of the appeal in the Union Steel v. U.S. case regarding zeroing in administrative reviews. The six proceedings challenge the International Trade Administration’s use of zeroing in the 2004-05, 2005-06, and 2008-09 administrative reviews of the antidumping duty order on ball bearings and parts thereof from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and the U.K. CIT said the AD administrative reviews concern different antidumping duty orders and administrative reviews than are involved in the Union Steel case, but both cases raise the same general issue of the permissibility under current law of the ITA’s application of the zeroing methodology in an administrative review.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's web site as of June 4, 2012, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://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.)
Certain provisions of the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, passed on May 18, “could cripple and certainly would delay substantially the overall Export Control Reform initiative,” said Under Secretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security Eric Hirschhorn at a meeting of the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration on June 4. Hirschhorn also said he hopes the first ECR rules will be finalized this summer or fall, and a member of the benchmarking subcommittee contemplated merging BIS’ license application system into a unified DTrade system for both BIS and State license applications.
Mexico's Diario Oficial of June 4, 2012, lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:
The International Trade Commission is publishing notices in the June 4, 2012, 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):