Vietnam Customs issued guidance on requirements for used machinery imports, the country’s customs mouthpiece, CustomsNews, said Aug. 11. The guidance includes additional information on which types of machinery imports are permitted, requirements for when a company must submit their business registration and a description of information that must be included in customs documents. Vietnam said it is also requiring customs import dossiers to include original certificates from the item’s manufacturer and the year it was manufactured. Vietnam banned certain imports of used machinery in June (see 1905030051).
Country of origin cases
A World Trade Organization arbitrator will review Korea's request to impose tariffs on $350 million worth of U.S. imports because Korea claims the U.S. did not comply with a WTO ruling on antidumping for oil country tubular goods (see 1711140008). The U.S. said Aug. 9 that the level of retaliation is too high. Korea lost most of its claims in the original 2014 case, and the Commerce Department said it complied with the findings regarding profit determinations.
Tariff negotiations among members of the new African Continental Free Trade Agreement are scheduled to conclude by January 2020, with duty reductions under the agreement to take effect in July next year, according to a report in the Namibian newspaper New Era. Signatories of the agreement, which entered into force at the end of May, have agreed that 90 percent of tariffs will be eliminated, while another 7 percent may be designated as sensitive and 3 percent may be excluded from liberalization. Namibian International Relations and Cooperation Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah told New Era that negotiations on tariff reductions on the sensitive list are due to the African Union Commission for approval in January. “She noted that trading and tariff dismantling under the AfCFTA is to commence in July 2020, and member states are expected to conclude outstanding rules of origin negotiation,” the report said.
Vietnam Customs recently issued guidance to its provincial departments on validation of certificates of origin under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), according to an Aug. 8 report in CustomsNews mouthpiece. The guidance includes some additional criteria for each of the nine minimum data elements required for CPTPP certificates of origin under Annex 3-B of the agreement.
In the Aug. 1-6 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
Singapore Customs issued a circular outlining changes and new requirements for rules of origin and certification procedures under revised regulations of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area, Singapore said in an Aug. 6 notice. The circular describes the requirements that have to be met for goods to be qualified as originating goods, and details the expansion to the list of “Product Specific Rules” and the inclusion of a de minimis provision. Singapore said the new requirements will take effect Aug. 15.
President Donald Trump held a press conference Aug. 2 at the White House with European officials and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to announce an increase in tariff-free access to U.S. hormone-free beef in the European Union. The changes to the EU's tariff rate quotas will go into effect after the European Parliament approves hem, which is expected in the fall. It was originally announced by the EU in June (see 1906140026).
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Aug. 1 to give the State and Treasury departments the ability to impose more sanctions on countries using chemical or biological weapons. The new sanctions include restrictions on financial loans by international banks, blocking measures and trade controls.
In the July 30 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
A new provision in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s rules of origin for automobiles should prevent automobile manufacturers from having to segregate parts on the production line and also make origin calculations less burdensome, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the Senate Finance Committee in one of a series of written answers to questions the committee posed to him at a June 18 hearing. Under the renegotiated NAFTA, called USMCA, certain “core parts” listed in Column 1 of Table A.2 must be originating for a vehicle to be originating, but Article 3.9 permits producers to bundle the parts under Column 1 together as a “super core” part when calculating the value of non-originating material (VNM) for origin purposes. “Many vehicle producers do not segregate core parts when producing vehicles, but use or bundle them within different modules along the production line,” USTR said. “The ‘super core’ calculation allows such producers to meet the core parts requirement without having to segregate each of the parts and do separate, burdensome calculations. The super core calculation incentivizes U.S. producers to use more originating content and maintains their competitiveness without accruing any possible efficiency losses from having to segregate core parts,” the agency said.