The U.S. Trade and Development Agency is providing a $285,804 grant to Egyptian company Raya Holding for Technology and Communications to fund a feasibility study for a new data center with cloud computing services to be built by Raya, USTDA said. The facility, which represents an important investment in the Egyptian economy, will build a new Tier IV Data Center with the ability to offer a range of services from co-location, managed hosting, disaster recovery, business continuity, data center management and security, professional services, and cloud services, it said.

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued an export denial order prohibiting exports by Humane Restraint, Inc. of Wis. to any destination except Canada for a period of two years, and pay a penalty of $465,000, of which all but $50,000 is suspended as per a settlement agreement, among other things. The denial order allows Humane Restraint to export under previously approved Bureau of Industry and Security licenses. According to the order, Humane Restraint exported various restraint devices, such as strait jackets, bed restraints, and wrist and ankle restraints, which are classified under ECCN 0A982 and controlled for Crime Control (CC) reasons), to Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom without the required license. The order also alleges that Human Restraint acted with knowledge that such activities are violations of the Export Administration Regulations

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued two Federal Register notices, set to be published in the July 16 Federal Register, correcting the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) at 15 CFR 772 (Definition of Terms) and 15 CFR 774 (Commerce Control List). The corrections to definitions remove a term and a note and add three terms, while the corrections to the CCL amend 11 ECCNs.

The Export-Import Bank authorized more than $23.7 billion in financing during the first nine months of fiscal 2012, the bank said as the Commerce Department released data showing that U.S. exported $183 billion in goods and services in May. “U.S. exports have exceeded $180 billion every month this year,” said Fred P. Hochberg, Ex-Im chairman. “Exports remain a true bright spot in our economic recovery and are instrumental in creating and sustaining American jobs.” Exports of goods and services over the last twelve months totaled $2.15 trillion, which is 36.3 percent above the level of exports in 2009, the bank said. Over the last year, exports have been growing at an annualized rate of 13.7 percent when compared with 2009, it said. Over the last twelve months, the major export markets with the largest annualized increase in U.S. goods purchases were Panama (37.5 percent), Turkey (31.5 percent), Argentina (30.1 percent), Chile (29.1 percent), Hong Kong (29.0 percent), Honduras (27.8 percent), Peru (26.3 percent), Russia (26.2 percent), Brazil (23.5 percent), and Ecuador (22.7 percent).

The Bureau of Industry and Security submitted a proposed rule entitled “Amendment to Licensing Requirements for Exports to Canada of Shotguns, Shotgun Shells and Optical Sighting Devices under the Export Administration Regulations” for approval by the Office of Management and Budget on July 10. OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has 90 days to review the proposed rules, which may be extended on a one-time basis by 30 days.

The Census Bureau published a special edition of its TradeSource newsletter containing a “toolkit” of government resources available to help companies become successful exporters. The issue lists government programs, resources, and websites available to exporters when performing 9 key functions, such as finding buyers, export financing, understanding regulations, documentation and shipping, etc., and contains short descriptions of each item.

The Southern U.S. Trade Association will begin accepting applications Aug. 1 for funding assistance to help companies promote their food and agriculture products internationally, it said. SUSTA, through the federal Market Access Program, reimburses companies up to 50 percent of their export promotional costs -- such as product advertising in foreign markets, exhibiting at international trade shows and adapting their product labels for foreign laws -- to help them become competitive in global markets. Hundreds of companies that take advantage of this program each year see direct benefits to their bottom line, it said. Last year, companies enrolled in SUSTA's programs exported more than $41 million in American food and agriculture thanks to the funding and assistance.

The Census Bureau said it will hold the first in a series of webinars entitled “The Fundamentals of Exporting” at 1 p.m. July 11. The webinar, called "Understanding the Basics An Introduction to Foreign Trade Statistics,” will focus on how to obtain country and product data at www.census.gov/trade to conduct market analysis and make informed exporting decisions. Registration for the webinar is available here. The conference number is 8937683 and the passcode is 2566214. Information on other upcoming webinars in this series is available here.

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued corrections to Export Administration Regulations provisions to make certain corrections, remove certain paragraphs, and add certain paragraphs, as follows:

The AESDirect system will be down July 14 from 1 to 5 a.m., and again July 15 from 1 to 5 a.m., for required system maintenance, the Census Bureau said in AES Broadcast # 2012042. As such, the AESDirect system will not be available for EEI filing. Census said exporters should file their shipments prior to these outages if possible.