TradeLane

On January 16 2016, the United States announced that they are lifting certain US sanctions against Iran that are consistent with the announcement of Implementation Day and in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The United States Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) released a general guidance document regarding the lifting of US sanctions under the JCPOA.

This week, I have been lucky enough to engage in a round table with some of the most knowledgeable, international customs experts worldwide. As we discussed trade compliance in Asia, EU, North America, and Australia, as well as currently emerging markets, I realized something: these people are MUCH smarter than I am…

I am pretty good at throwing out a smart question every now and then, but as we discussed the worldwide complexities of the UCC/AEO, biomedical/pharmaceutical marking and shipping, and the potential of TPP... Well, it left my head spinning.

How do companies with small compliance staffs keep up to speed with all these regulations?

Did you know that the first football match Queen Elizabeth attended was the 1953 FA Cup Final? Did you know that, during her reign, there have been 12 prime ministers? Did you know that the queen has, during her entire reign, answered around three and a half million items of correspondence?

Obviously, there’s a lot to know about the Royals. They are inescapable if you live in the UK. The Queen is on all of our money; we pay taxes and import duties to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Heck, I even pulled all those facts off of royal.gov.uk.

As a trade consultant, the Royal family is not the only kind of royalty I am interested in. There is also plenty to know about Royalty Payments and how they impact the declared value of goods when they are brought into the European Union.

Regulations, rules, requirements – the life of an international trader bumps up against them all the time. It is our job to make sure that our organizations understand them, follow them, and stay out of trouble.

As soon as you have exhaustively explained how EVERYTHING that is imported into the U.S. must be marked with its country of origin, or how you can NEVER export anything to Cuba, or why you ALWAYS pay duty when you import something that some know-it-all brings up – the EXCEPTION.

On March 26, 2016, China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) announced a revision of the import and export declaration forms (GAC Announcement, No. 20 of 2016).

The revision has accommodated and consolidated all the legislative changes made by Customs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, and National Reform and Development Commission etc. ever since 2008, which are relevant to, or have impact on, import and export declaration process. Considering the number of fields that have been changed or added, the revision is unprecedented in past decades.