Between March 21 and March 29, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
Between April 2 and April 6, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
Officials in the Food and Drug Administration’s China office say the Chinese are on their way to developing an infrastructure that better ensures product safety. The FDA said it has trained more than 1,600 Chinese manufacturers and regulators on U.S. safety standards over the past two years. Michael Kravchuk, who was deputy director in Beijing until he retired in September, says the FDA has built solid relationships with Chinese regulators and exporters since officially opening an office in Beijing in November 2008. The FDA held a hands-on workshop in the cities of Hangzhou and Zhoushan in September. The event included a half-day of classroom instruction and three full days of demonstrations at two plants that process low-acid canned foods such as mushrooms, sardines, artichoke hearts, and tuna.
Mexico's Diario Oficial of April 9, 2012, lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:
To prevent some azo dyestuffs that can change into toxic substances from harming human health, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has been asking the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) to consider regulating textile products that use such dyestuffs. METI has also asked the Japan Textile Federation (JTF) to make voluntary efforts to ensure the safety of textile products and have jointly been striving toward that goal. JTF has already established and implemented voluntary industry standards for ensuring the safety of textile products. These standards were disclosed to the public on March 29, 2012.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation revised its report identifying "candidate countries" for Millennium Challenge Account assistance during fiscal year 2012 pursuant to changes to the MCC’s FY 2012 appropriation as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 that redefined candidate countries. While this revision does not affect the compact or threshold program eligibility decisions made at the December 2011 MCC Board meeting, it does alter the income classification of some candidate countries.
The Foreign Trade Zones Board is issuing the following notices for April 9, 2012:
The first of a series of workshops entitled ‘‘Designing for Impact: Workshop on Building the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation” was announced by the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office (AMNPO), housed by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). The workshop will be April 25, 2012, and will provide a forum for the AMPNO to introduce the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) and its regional components, Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation (IMIs). The workshops will also provide a forum for public discussion of the new initiative, which President Obama announced March 9, 2012. Online registration for the workshop will close April 20.
Commerce Secretary Bryson announced that he will attend the next meeting of the U.S.-Turkey Framework for Strategic Economic and Commercial Cooperation (FSECC), to be held in late June in Turkey. The FSECC is co-chaired by Bryson and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, as well as Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Babacan and Economy Minister Caglayan.
The International Trade Commission decided to review part of an administrative law judge’s January 12 final initial determination finding a violation of section 337 in its investigation of certain liquid crystal display devices, including monitors, televisions, modules, and components thereof (337-TA-741 / 749). The ALJ found a violation by Chimei InnoLux Corporation of Taiwan and InnoLux Corporation of Texas with respect to a claim of a patent held by Thomson Licensing SAS of France and Thomson Licensing LLC of New Jersey. With regard to Thomson’s other patent claims, no violations were found.