U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published a final rule which amends the Customs Regulations effective January 5, 2004 regarding 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. (See final rule for compliance dates for each transportation mode.)

The Journal of Commerce Online (JoC Online) reports that on January 1, 2004, the Port of Colombo, Sri Lanka was scheduled to begin trials of an automated cargo clearance system aimed at speeding clearance of cargo, which is known as the electronic data interchange (EDI) project. According to the article, a Sri Lankan official stated that transshipment cargo at Colombo port would go paperless April 1, Sri Lanka's import cargo May 1, and exports August 1, 2004. (JoC Online, dated 12/24/03, www.joc.com)

(Read Footnotes and Disclaimers at End of Notice)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message which clarifies its previously issued instructions on the Special Bill programming (new non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) and Master vessel operating common carrier (VOCC) bill types) for Sea Automated Manifest System (AMS) which was moved into production during the normally scheduled system outage on 11:00 p.m. EST Saturday, January 10, 2004 to 3:00 a.m. EST Sunday, January 11, 2004.

(a) Sanjian has an AD duty rate of zero; no cash deposits will be required although suspension of liquidation will continue.

On October 18, 2003 the Bureau of Census (Census) implemented a final rule to, among other things, amend 15 CFR 30.7 to require the Employer Identification Number (EIN) or Social Security Number (SSN) of the duly authorized forwarding or other agent (if any) of a principal party in interest to be on the paper Shipper's Export Declaration (SED, Form 7525-V).

According to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Annex 300-B, Appendix 3.1, the 'regular' quota for the following Mexican categories expired on December 31, 2003:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site its weekly quota commodity report as of January 6, 2004. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cocoa, tobacco, certain Jordan Free Trade Agreement (JFTA), Chile Free Trade Agreement (UCFTA), and Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SFTA) TRQs, etc. This report also includes TRQs on certain HTS Chapter 52 cotton, upland cotton under HTS Chapter 99, the UCFTA, SFTA, CBTPA, AGOA, ATPDEA, and NAFTA tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics under HTS 9902.51.11 & 9902.51.12, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 01/06/04, available at http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)

The Wall Street Journal reports that DNA testing has confirmed that the Washington state cow infected with mad-cow disease came from Canada, a development that allows the U.S. beef industry to shift blame but probably will not appease many countries enough to lift their bans on U.S. beef imports anytime soon. (WSJ dated 01/07/04, www.wsj.com.)

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued its final results of the changed circumstances antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty reviews of certain pasta from Turkey, concluding that Tat Konserve Sanayi A.S. (Tat) is the successor-in-interest to Pastavilla Makarnacilik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (Pastavilla) for AD and CV duty cash deposit purposes.