by Heather Burke
On February 19, 2014, the White House issued an Executive Order that directs the U.S. federal agencies with a role in trade to complete the development of an electronic “Single Window” by December 2016. The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) will become the Single Window – the primary system through which the trade community will report imports and exports and the government will determine admissibility of trade goods.
Through ACE as the Single Window, manual processes will be streamlined and automated, paper will be eliminated; and the international trade community will be able to more easily and efficiently comply with U.S. laws and regulations.
The centralization of the Automated Export System (AES) on the ACE system will have a significant impact on both the government’s oversight capabilities and importers’ and exporters’ compliance responsibilities.
In early April of this year, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), successfully completed the third of seven deployments of new ACE features. This deployment marks continued progress in CBP’s plan to deliver all core trade processing capabilities in ACE by the end of 2016. Features in this recent deployment include the:
- Expansion of the ACE Cargo Release pilot to include in-bond movements and partial quantities for ocean and rail shipments, and basic processing for truck shipments;
- Ability for filers to certify for ACE Cargo Release from their ACE Entry Summary record for air, ocean and rail shipments (Certified from Summary);
- New ACE entry summary validations for Merchandise Processing Fee and Complex Duty Calculations (i.e., those entry summary lines with two Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) classifications); and the
- Migration of the Automated Export System (AES) to the ACE platform, and support for new Census Bureau and Bureau of Industry and Security regulations.
CBP and trade filers are currently testing the new Cargo Release transactions for ocean shipments. In addition, CBP is preparing to test the Partner Government Agency (PGA) Message Set transactions for the pilot with the Environmental Protection Agency, targeted to begin later this month.
Importers interested in taking advantage of the new ACE Cargo Release capabilities or who have questions regarding other features of ACE should contact me or their local DB Schenker office.
Heather Burke (heather.burke@dbschenker.com) is Director, Trade Services, DB Schenker. DB Schenker has been an early ACE participant, including having been selected as a pilot provider in the ACE Cargo Release implementation.
