The World Customs Organization Permanent Technical Committee has approved a draft of e-commerce technical specifications, and the package will next face review with the Policy Commission in June and the WCO Council soon after, said Ana Hinojosa, WCO director-Compliance and Facilitation. Hinojosa spoke via video at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's annual conference on April 17. There are also some discussions on e-commerce planned with the World Trade Organization, she said. "They have invited us to participate in some of their workshops and we're very interested in us to engage in their process as well," she said. "We're hopeful that those conversations will be fruitful and something will come out of that."

The Eurasian Economic Union is hoping to sign a free trade agreement with Serbia in October, according to an April 11 report from Dezan Shira & Associates. The announcement came from a board member of the Eurasian Economic Commission at an international conference earlier in April in Kazakhstan. Board member Veronika Nikishina said the EAEU has concluded negotiations with Serbia and hopes to sign the agreement this year, according to the report. Nikishina also said “just a step separates” the EAEU from wrapping up negotiations with Singapore on a “free trade zone,” the report said.

The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of April 19 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

The U.S. and China are aiming to reach a trade agreement by early May and sign it later that month, according to an April 17 report by Bloomberg. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to travel to Beijing in late April, according to the report, followed by a Washington visit from Chinese Vice Premier Liu He the next week. During that visit, officials hope to announce a trade agreement, Bloomberg reported.

China’s recent decision to reduce certain customs fees will have a substantial impact on making procedures easier at the country's various ports, according to Alexander Chipman Koty, a China-based associate managing editor for business intelligence reports at Dezan Shira & Associates. The changes -- part of a larger decision made by China’s State Council on April 9 to lower taxes on certain imported goods (see 1904100013) -- underpin an “ambitious program to improve its business environment,” Koty said in an email. Most of the changes involve “eliminating or consolidating different fees and forms,” he said, adding that “together … these small reforms have had the cumulative effect of making day-to-day business easier and more straight forward.” But Koty said they also may help China reach its larger goal: expanding its ports, the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and the Hainan Free Trade Zone. “[The changes] mark another small step in making China’s business environment easier to deal with -- including its ports and customs procedures -- which is significant for importers and exporters,” Koty said.

A New Jersey man was sentenced to 46 months in prison after he planned to illegally export firearms and ammunition to Paraguay, the Department of Justice said in an April 18 press release. Pedro Vergara bought at least 13 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition between May 2017 and November 2017, according to the release, and planned to sell them on the black market. Vergara hid the guns in shipping boxes and transported them from New Jersey to a shipping company in New York, the DOJ said, where he planned to smuggle them into Paraguay. Vergara also removed the serial numbers from at least 10 of the guns to conceal “ownership interest,” the release said. In addition to the prison sentence, Vergara was also sentenced to two years of supervised release and fined $10,000.

The Census Bureau added a new port of export code to the Automated Export System, the agency said in an April 17 email. The new code is 5589 for Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Automated Export System Downtime Policy was deactivated on April 19 and ACE AESDirect is now operational following the unscheduled ACE AES outage on April 18, the Census Bureau said in an April 19 email. "As a reminder, you are REQUIRED to file all Electronic Export Information (EEI) for shipments that were exported under the AES Downtime Policy, along with any new AES transactions, to receive an Internal Transaction Number (ITN)," it said. The agency also asked filers not to submit shipment more than once. "Due to the high volume of shipments that are being processed at this time, please be patient in obtaining an AES response message. Do not submit shipments more than once," Census said in another email.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is evading U.S.-imposed sanctions by funneling cash from Venezuelan oil sales through a Russian state energy company, according to an April 18 report from Reuters. The cash flowing through Rosneft is the most recent sign of “the growing dependence of Venezuela’s cash-strapped government on Russia” as a result of U.S. sanctions, according to the report.

Even with an already high volume of U.S.-imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and economic sectors within the first few months of 2019, the sanctions are only likely to increase, said Johann Strauss, an international trade lawyer at Akin Gump.