14 October 1999

US to test multi-agency filing of data

The following article is excerpted from "The Journal of Commerce" edition of 14 October 1999.

It is 2010, and a refrigerated container of vegetables arrives at the Port of Miami. It is removed from the ship, loaded onto a chassis and whisked away.

Meanwhile at the U.S.-Mexico border, a shipment of televisions enters the United States after documentation was filed electronically to Customs.

In both cases, all data required by various government agencies had been filed electronically, in advance, to a single point of contact.

A dream? Or is it something that can happen within a decade? The answer may come in the next year, as the federal government begins a pilot project for the International Trade Data System, or ITDS -- a computer system that will permit simultaneous filing of import data to multiple government agencies.

Currently, importers must file data separately to multiple government agencies -- Customs, the Agriculture Department, Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies. More than 40 government agencies exercise some jurisdiction over imports or exports.

That would change under ITDS, a computer system being developed to standardize data, automation, communications and encryption.

The U.S. Treasury Department this week published a Federal Register notice seeking comment through December 13 on plans to shift to ITDS from the North American Trade Automation Prototype (Natap), which has operated for several years along the Mexican and Canadian borders.

Migrating to new system

"We are migrating from Natap to ITDS and migrating from a parallel process to a single process" for filing data, said William Nolle, an international trade specialist for the Treasury Department's International Trade Data System project office.

Because Natap is a test program, motor carriers filed data simultaneously to Customs and other federal agencies, and to Natap. Under ITDS, participants will file just once, Nolle said.

Natap has been tested on the southern border in Otay Mesa, Calif.; Nogales, Ariz.; and Laredo, Texas. Along the northern border, Natap has been tested at Buffalo, N.Y., and Detroit. Those five cities would continue testing under the ITDS program.

In another important change under ITDS, Treasury will not insist that shippers and motor carriers use a specially designed Natap software. Instead, companies will use Automated Broker Interface, a technology that customs brokers have used for years to communicate with Customs.

While the ITDS project is still in the early stages, customs brokers and others in the logistics chain have welcomed efforts to allow trade to move more efficiently across borders.

'Some potential'

"It has some potential to simplify the interaction of the trade community with the government," said Bill Ansley, president of Samuel Shapiro & Son and chairman of the automation committee of the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America.

"We would have one government entity that we would deal with -- all of the transmission and all the results back from the ITDS system," Ansley said.

Simplifying the interaction is no small task. In its Federal Register notice, Treasury noted there is a tremendous amount of overlap in paperwork.

The agency said records indicate that "nearly 90% of the data provided to federal trade agencies are redundant."

ITDS is expected to be under control of Customs, which apparently prevailed in a jurisdictional feud with Customs' parent agency, the Treasury Department.

Customs oversight backed

The decision to put the program under Customs was supported by importers and customs brokers, who said Customs has the most experience processing import data....