Border Lines
A roundup of North American news:
Staff -- Logistics Management, 10/1/2001
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We're now halfway through the implementation timetable for NAFTA, and at a meeting in Washington this summer, U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, Canada's Minister for International Trade Pierre S. Pettigrew, and Mexico's Secretary of the Economy Luis Ernesto Derbez took stock of NAFTA's accomplishments to date. In a joint statement, they noted that trilateral trade had increased since 1994 by 128 percent to US $676 billion annually, or more than $1.8 billion a day. They also announced that they had agreed to a fourth round of accelerated tariff reductions as well as technical amendments affecting audit provisions and dispute resolution procedures in NAFTA's Chapter 11. Other updates will bring rules-of-origin requirements into harmonization with recent changes in the Harmonized System of tariff classification. All changes will take effect Jan. 1, 2002.
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Mexican customs authorities are considering ways to increase participation by private industry in the customs-clearance process. In a speech earlier this year at a conference at Belmont Abbey College in Charlotte, N.C., Fernando Ramos Casas, Mexican Customs' top regulator, told attendees that the agency may in the future allow private banks to handle duty payments. Currently those payments must be made directly to government-controlled accounts. Ramos also said that contracts for secondary inspections of imported goods that were held by Mexican customs brokers would end within the next two years and that the agency was discussing whether to renew them or award the concessions to other types of private companies.
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Canada's new "clear language" regulations governing the transportation of dangerous goods were officially published in the Canada Gazette, Part II on Aug. 15 as the "Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations, 2001." The new regulations, which will take effect Aug. 15, 2002, rewrote existing regulations in clearer, simpler language as part of a national effort to improve compliance by making laws and regulations less ambiguous and easier to understand. The regulations also boast a new, more "user friendly" format, said Transport Minister David Collenette in announcing the changes. Other changes include technical revisions that reflect changes in technology, international regulatory harmonization, and the increased number of transborder shipments.
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NAFTA Notes: Danzas AEI Intercontinental has opened a brokerage facility in Surrey, B.C., on the Canadian side of the Pacific Coast Highway. The new office focuses on customs clearance, duty drawback, and compliance services for imports to Canada from the United States.Brennan International Transport, an ocean freight consolidator based in Rancho Dominguez, Calif., now offers service from Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, B.C., to Latin America, Europe, and Asia. ConsolidatorDirect Container Line of Carson, Calif., has improved transit times for its existing service from Montreal and Toronto to Latin America by up to 15 days, thanks to faster inland connections between Canada, New York, and Miami. Primac Air, a new division of Primac Courier (Canada) Inc., has inaugurated daily overnight cargo service between Thunder Bay and Toronto, Ontario. The schedule allows for pickups until midnight in Toronto and by 7:00 p.m. in Thunder Bay.
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