Tim Warren

The board of the Export-Import Bank of the United States approved a Final Commitment for an $84.8 million loan guarantee to VRG Linhas Aereas S.A. (GOL), a Brazilian airline. This financing will support the export of engine maintenance services by Delta TechOps, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Atlanta. GOL engines will be shipped from São Paulo City to Atlanta for heavy maintenance to be performed by Delta Air Lines' maintenance, repair, and overhaul unit. In December 2010, GOL signed a contract with Delta Air Lines to perform heavy maintenance on GOL's CFM56-7B engines that are installed on the airline's Boeing 737 next generation aircraft fleet. As part of the contract, Delta TechOps will provide GOL with up to 253 scheduled engine removals and additional unscheduled removals. Ex-Im Bank's guarantee will cover the first two years of GOL’s five-year contract with Delta TechOps.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to begin a test of the Document Image System (DIS), said a April 6 Federal Register Notice that provided details of the test's first phase. The test will allow importers and brokers that use the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) to file certain government forms through the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Customs agents at the Port of Los Angeles stopped shipping containers that contained 20 high-end cars, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The agents were alerted to the cars after a rental company noted that the GPS device installed in a rented Ferrari showed the car as at the port and not moving, the L.A. Times reported.. The Ferrari and other cars were all in containers marked "used fitness equipment" bound for Hong Kong and Vietnam, said CBP.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Area Port of Buffalo will hold its first “Trade Day” on Thursday, May 3, 2012. The event will provide an opportunity for members of the trade community to meet with CBP and other government officials responsible for facilitating the importation of their goods. The Trade Day activities will be at U.S. Customs and Border Protection Port Office, 726 Exchange St., Suite 400, Buffalo, NY, from 10 am to 1 pm. The event is free, but on-line registration is required.

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General released two reports on U.S. Customs and Border Protection Management.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to conduct a National Customs Automation Program (NCAP) test allowing Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) participants to submit official documents via the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Importers and Brokers will be allowed to submit CBP and specified Participating Government Agency (PGA) forms to CBP in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format, in lieu of conventional paper methods. The test will be known as the Document Image System (DIS) Test. Only importers or brokers using ACE for entry summary files will be eligible to participate. DIS document submission rules are on page five, and a list of documents supported within the first phase of the test are on page six. The document doesn't mention the DIS "Export Manifest" pilot.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:

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 April 3, 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.

The following ACE Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) Chapters and related documents have undergone minor revisions and are posted to the CBP website.