5 June 2008

U.S. seeks WCO endorsement of "10+2" data elements

This article was published in the 5 June 2008 edition of “American Shipper”.

The World Customs Organizations annual confab in Brussels later this month is expected to produce progress on a couple of U.S. trade security initiatives.

A proposal to amend the intergovernmental agency's supply chain security standards to align them with U.S. import data requirements is on track to pass, and the United States plans to announce reciprocity agreements with Jordan and Canada that will allow sharing of corporate audit results from trusted shipper programs.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection in April submitted a package of amendments to the WCO's SAFE framework of security and trade facilitation standards that would incorporate data elements from its "10+2" proposal for advance electronic filing of commercial data by importers. The advance data on manufacturers, buyers and middlemen will be used by Customs for pre-departure screening of shipments with potential terrorist links. The U.S. importer security filing requirements were seen by some as at odds with efforts to promote global security standards because several of the data elements were not part of the WCO's recommended data set for advance screening.

CBP determined that only five of the 10 importer-supplied data elements in the "10+2" rulemaking needed to be added to the WCO tables to make them consistent with each other, said Michael Mullen, assistant commissioner for international affairs and trade relations…

Along with the new data elements, the United States submitted three criteria to ensure that the WCO template of approved data elements that can be collected from commercial traders is kept to a bare minimum, Mullen said. The CBP proposal states that customs administrations that want the WCO to expand its data model should be doing so in response to a national legislative mandate and should have an official rulemaking process in place or already completed in their home country. Customs administrations seeking to collect more data should also extensively consult with the trade community and ensure the data elements conform with the WCO data model….

The constraints are necessary so that governments don't feel they can arbitrarily change the global standards and burden importers and exporters….

The United States also plans to sign mutual recognition agreements with Jordan and Canada that will allow sh