(a) preliminary de minimis rate

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that it is delaying the full enforcement of the term "shipper" for inbound ocean cargo declaration purposes, as it appears in CBP's December 5, 2003 final rule on the advance electronic presentation of cargo information.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued its first version (dated February 12, 2004) of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) concerning its final rule which requires the advance electronic presentation of information pertaining to cargo (sea, air, rail, or truck) prior to its being brought into, or sent from, the U.S.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a notice announcing that, based on its current ongoing review proceedings, as well as additional rulemaking proceedings required by new legislation, it does not intend to announce review of any additional rules or guides during 2004.

On July 17, 2002, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a notice containing guidance on the detention timeframes for textiles and wearing apparel under 19 CFR 151.16 and 19 USC 1499(c), which CBP sources state is still current policy.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP's) Office of Information and Technology has posted a notice to its Web site containing (a) a list, updated as of February 12, 2004, of companies/persons offering Sea Automated Manifest System (AMS) data processing services to the trade community, and (b) the Sea AMS Respondent Checklist, as follows:

The State Department has issued a final rule, effective February 17, 2004, which amends the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) by modifying the U.S.' denial policy regarding the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) so that it is consistent with United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1493 of July 2003.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) has recently posted to its Web site an updated list of current antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders.

Broker Power provides quota prices on a monthly basis for certain textile and apparel categories from the People's Republic of China (China) that are publicly traded. (These publicly traded quota prices have been provided by a Hong Kong quota broker.)