The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued a notice of inquiry announcing that it is considering proposing regulations that would establish procedures that the agency would follow when it has reason to believe that a person has certified and submitted false statements, or engaged in a scheme to certify and submit false statements, in the course of an antidumping (AD) or countervailing (CV) duty proceeding.

According to the State Department, effective January 15, 2004, its Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), through the use of the D-Trade electronic licensing system, is prepared to receive and adjudicate fully electronic defense export authorization requests properly submitted by any U.S. person who is a defense trade registrant and wishes to permanently export unclassified defense articles via the Form DSP-5 or furnish defense services via Technical Assistance Agreements (TAAs).

The Department of Transportation's (DOT's) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has withdrawn a February 17, 1999 advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) relating to responsibilities for the inspection, repair, and maintenance of intermodal container chassis and trailers.

The Commerce Department's Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) has issued its Major Shippers Textiles and Apparel Report, which contains selected general import statistics by date of import from the Census Bureau through November 30, 2003 by country and category (including merged and part category).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP's) Office of Information and Technology has posted a notice to its Web site containing (a) a list, updated as of January 14, 2004, of companies/persons offering Sea Automated Manifest System (AMS) data processing services to the trade community, and (b) the Sea AMS Respondent Checklist, as follows:

The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) has issued a Federal Register notice stating that pursuant to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the existing export visa and folklore certification requirements are being canceled for textile and apparel products in Categories 410, 433, 443, and 611 as such products are no longer subject to 'regular' quotas for exports from Mexico on and after January 1, 2004. (See ITT's Online Archives or 01/14/04 news, 04011415, for earlier BP summary.) (FR Pub 01/23/04, available at http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2004/pdf/04-1560.pdf)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a notice stating that, effective January 23, 2004, the U.S. is rescinding the visa and ELVIS requirement for Chinese origin products in Categories 222, 349/649 and 350/650 which remain subject to safeguard quotas. (See ITT's Online Archives or 01/22/04 news, 04012210, for BP summary of the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements' (CITA's) announcement of this rescission.) (QBT-04-001, dated 01/23/04, available at http://www.cbp.gov/ImageCache/cgov/content/import/textiles/qbt/qbt2004/2004_5f001_2edoc/v1/2004_5f001.doc)

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has initiated administrative reviews of the following antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders for the specific companies listed in the ITA notice (unless otherwise noted):

On January 22, 2004, the Senate passed the conference report for H.R. 2673, the fiscal year (FY) 2004 omnibus appropriations bill for a number of federal government departments and agencies, by a vote of 65 to 28.