India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade gave three new entities the power to issue Certificates of Origin. The Export Promotion Council for EOUs and SEZs in New Delhi, the Urban Exim Care Association in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and the Federation of Industries & Associations in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, are authorized to issue Certificates of Origin to Appendices and Aayat Niryat Forms of the Foreign Trade Policy, DGFT said an Oct. 18 notice.
The European Union granted Chinese exporter Liling Taichang Ceramics Co.'s request for new exporting producer treatment with regard to the definitive antidumping duties on ceramic tableware and kitchenware from China, the European Commission said. The exporter will receive the 17.9% dumping rate for cooperating companies not included in the sample of the original investigation. The commission found that Liling Taichang was not a company during the period of investigation, precluding its ability to be included in the original investigation sample.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently received a letter from China’s customs agency about Decree 248, which includes upcoming changes to certain customs procedures for overseas producers and customs registrations, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service said Oct. 11. Although China hasn’t yet issued implementing regulations for the decree, USDA said the letter includes a “Catalogue of Imported Foods with Historical Trade,” a registration application for overseas manufacturers of imported foods and a sample of a “Competent Authority Conformity Declaration.” USDA said China hasn’t “answered U.S. industry or the U.S. Government questions on the draft measure” but said it expects the measures to be implemented Dec. 31. The letter was originally sent to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing last month.
Vietnam's Customs Enforcement Team, a part of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, discovered hundreds of boxes of smuggled goods Oct. 6, the state-run CustomsNews reported Oct. 8. Imported by Vietseatrust Food Import-Export Trading, the shipment was declared as having more than 21 metric tons of frozen whole blood cockles (clams) originating from Indonesia. An inspection found hundreds of cartons of undeclared goods such as swallow bird nest, dried seahorses, dried snouted pipefish, some bones, animal horns, auto parts and motorcycles, CustomsNews said.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., introduced a bill that would sanction two Chinese health officials that he says chose not to share information early in the pandemic that could have helped authorities respond. His Oct. 5 press release said, "The sanctions would remain in place until they allow an independent, unimpeded investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a potential origin for the COVID-19 virus." The bill is a companion to a Republican bill introduced in June with 27 co-sponsors.
The United Kingdom launched an online portal Oct. 1 for exporters to access advice from the U.K.'s export support team, the Department for International Trade said. This “one-stop shop” seeks to make it easier for exporters to access advice and support from the U.K. government on shipping their goods to the rest of Europe. This guidance can aid exporters on questions surrounding rules of origin, recognizing professional qualifications and entering new markets, DIT said.
Australia and India on Oct. 1 officially resumed negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), which is expected to boost trade and improve trade rules over standards, rules of origin, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (see 2108020009). The two countries said they hope to reach an interim agreement by December and complete negotiations on a full deal by the end of 2022.
The U.S. and the European Union agreed to develop “convergent” export controls on sensitive technologies and work more closely on investment screening, the White House said in a fact sheet released after the Sept. 29 inaugural meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (see 2109270027). Although the White House didn’t name specific technologies that could come under more export control or investment scrutiny, it stressed the importance of semiconductor supply chain cooperation and said the two sides agreed to “achieve concrete outcomes by the next meeting.”
A new U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service report outlines Canada’s new and continued 2021 import requirements for U.S. romaine lettuce. The Sept. 27 report details information required with all imports, including the proof of origin, sampling information and testing information. Among the new requirements is a preharvest testing option for the imports, which stipulates that samples must be taken no more than seven days before harvest, and other conditions. The additional import requirements will be in effect from Sept. 30 until Dec. 31, 2021.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a Texas semiconductor component manufacturer nearly $500,000 for illegally exporting controlled wafers to Russia via Bulgaria (see 2012210013), the agency said in a Sept. 28 order. The company, Silicon Space Technology Corporation, which began doing business as Vorago Technologies in 2015, worked with a Russian engineering firm to export “rad-hard 16MB Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) wafers,” which were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations for spacecraft and related components.