A federal government payment website, Pay.gov, will conduct a “Disaster Recovery Exercise” 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT Oct. 15 and may be unavailable to users during that time, the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls said. DDTC said the outage will affect users paying registration fees during that window. Questions or concerns should be directed to Pay.gov customer support at (800) 624-1373 or pay.gov.clev@clev.frb.org.
The State Department approved a potential military sale to Kuwait worth about $3 billion, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Oct. 6. The sale includes a “National Advanced Surface-To-Air Missile System,” a “Medium Range Air Defense System” and related equipment. The principal contractor will be Raytheon Missiles and Defense.
The State Department on Oct. 6 sent an interim final rule for interagency review that proposes to amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to expand the definition of activities that are not exports, reexports, retransfers or temporary imports. The rule will propose to amend the ITAR by “specifying two additional activities.”
The Defense Department on Oct. 5 released another list of Chinese companies with ties to the country’s military. The latest tranche includes 13 companies, including businesses operating in the country's technology sectors. The list includes at least two companies that are also on the Commerce Department's Entity List: Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology Co. (DJI) and CloudWalk Technology Co.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission recently issued an updated table of Chinese companies listed on the Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange and the NYSE American. As of Sept. 30, 262 Chinese companies worth a "total market capitalization" of $775 billion were listed on those U.S. exchanges. The commission said the number represents a more than "half-trillion-dollar drop in the market capitalization of U.S.-listed Chinese firms" since June, "owing primarily to several major national-level state-owned enterprises (SOEs) delisting in August 2022."
The State Department Oct. 4 authorized another drawdown of $625 million worth of U.S. arms and defense equipment to Ukraine. The package includes weapons, munitions and equipment from Defense Department inventories, the agency said, and brings total U.S. security assistance to Ukraine to $17.5 billion since the beginning of the Biden administration.
The State Department completed another round of interagency review for a final rule that would amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The rule -- which was initially sent for review Sept. 6 (see 2209120001) and completed Sept. 14 (see 2209150009) with a change -- was again sent for review and completed on Oct. 4 after changes were made to the rule. The rulemaking would make revisions to “prohibited exports, imports, and sales to or from certain countries.”
SK ecoplant Co., a South Korean construction engineering firm, recently received approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to acquire U.S.-based Bloom Energy, Squire Patton Boggs said in a post this week. The acquisition was valued at $500 million, the post said.
U.S. agricultural exports to Taiwan remain promising due to continued demand for “western-style food options,” the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service said in an Oct. 3 report. The agency said U.S. agricultural exports to Taiwan rose by 17.5% from 2020 to 2021, adding that U.S soybeans, beef, wheat and poultry make up significant shares of Taiwan imports. But competition in a few products has recently “intensified,” USDA said, including for bulk products from Brazil and Argentina. The report provides an outlook for U.S. exporters of meat, pet food, wine and more.
The Federal Maritime Commission awarded a $500,000 contract to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study intermodal chassis pools and whether they can be made more efficient. The study, mandated by the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, also will look at the advantages and disadvantages of current chassis pool models and whether the models “have aligned incentives in ownership, management, repair, and provisioning that lead to supply chain efficiency,” the FMC said. The study may result in suggestions to improve “communications, information sharing, and knowledge management practices across chassis pool models,” the commission said.