Border Lines
A roundup of North American news:
Staff -- Logistics Management, 4/1/2001
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Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox, strongly supports a modernization program for his country's Customs Service, said Fernando Ramos Casas, deputy administrator general of Mexican Customs at the Kingsley Group's Transporte Internacional conference, held last month in Acapulco. Ramos, a former customs broker, outlined some of the areas that his agency will address under the modernization push. "We want to create a Customs Service that is agile and efficient but proactive," he told attendees. One focus will be risk assessment. "We need to examine fewer shipments, but they have to better targeted," he said, "and for that we require better information systems." As part of that effort, a U.S.-Mexican task force is currently working on ways to share risk-assessment information. Meanwhile, a 10-person committee is visiting customs authorities in several countries to study their operations, he added. "There is no need for us to invent everything ourselves."
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Ironically, one result of that modernization initiative is that importing into Mexico will soon become more challenging. Importers and their customs brokers will be required to provide Aduana, as Mexican Customs is popularly known, with 230 separate data elements—more than three times the number now required, according to Larry Bahan, director of customs for General Motors Mexico. In a presentation at Transporte Internacional, Bahan noted that GM had been testing the new procedures since Jan. 1 and that the program could be ready to launch within a few months. The increased data requirements, the need to edit files, and numerous format changes "provide no benefits for the trade community," Bahan said. But for Aduana, the new system is expected to improve audit trails, facilitate duty refunds, and provide an electronic link between documentation and revenue collection, he reported. There is some question, however, as to whether the agency's computer system will be able to handle the volume of new data that will be generated once the program goes live.
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Bahan also summarized some changes in Mexico's customs procedures that are being implemented this year as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These include: 1) changes in reporting requirements and tax payments for exports to NAFTA territories, 2) the elimination of duty-free status on non-NAFTA imports into Mexico that are subsequently exported to the United States and Canada, 3) the use of U.S. and Canadian import data to verify Mexican export-tax liabilities, and 4) numerous adjustments to regulations and data-reporting requirements for exports from maquiladoras.
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Livingston International will offer free seminars about exporting to Canada in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Full-day programs on "Optimizing Canadian Opportunities" will be held in Chicago on May 1 and in New York on May 16. These sessions will examine innovative cross-border strategies, offer an introduction to key requirements for exporting to Canada, and provide a guide to information resources about trade with Canada. Half-day sessions will be offered in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia in May and in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Seattle in June. For more information about the programs, visit www.livingstonintl.com/seminars or call (800) 837-1063.
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