U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which began processing Generalized System of Preferences duty refunds in early December for entries made during the period of January 1, 2011 through November 4, 2011, expects that all refunds for entries that were filed via ABI with the Special Program Indicator (SPI) "A" will be issued by the end of February 2012.

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

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing the issuance of Harmonized System Update 1108. This update contains 577 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 118 harmonized tariff records.

The Trade Support Network has issued its November 2011 Monthly Committee Report, which states it has updated and resubmitted its request¹ for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to add programming that allows non-ABI filers to generate post summary (pre-liquidation) amendments and corrections using the ACE Portal for entry summary data initially filed and accepted in the ACE Portal.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have issued the following news releases related to commercial trade and related issues:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its Public Automated Commercial System FIRMS (Facilities Information and Resources Management Systems) report that is organized by port code and alphabetically by company name.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a December 19, 2011 version of its CF 1400 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Entrances) electronic query report of the Vessel Management System (VMS), in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by entrances. CBP has also posted a December 12, 2011 version of its CF 1401 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Clearances) electronic query report of the VMS, in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by clearances.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted guidelines and a sample of product identification training guides companies can use to help CBP personnel and customs administrations in the European Union identify counterfeit and piratical goods to prevent them from entering the U.S. or the EU. The product identification training guides help customs personnel, such as officers and import specialists who inspect shipments and look for intellectual property rights (IPR) infringements.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that 13 CBP ports have started to process rail and sea manifests in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). The pilots for e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1), which began in November 2011, focus on transitioning full rail and sea manifest capability to ACE from the legacy Automated Manifest System of ACS.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a presentation on Simplified Entry and the Industry Integration Centers. In the presentation slides, CBP notes that Simplified Entry data elements will satisfy both security and trade concerns by, among other things, promoting the concept of "the owner of the data knows the data best." The presentation also includes flow diagrams comparing the current entry process to the simplified entry process.