A new Steptoe and Johnson team will focus on supply chain issues, the law firm said in a recent news release. The team is led by Jeff Weiss, co-leader of the firm's International Trade Policy practice.

Liam Fox, from the United Kingdom; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from Nigeria; Yoo Myung-hee from Korea; Amina C. Mohamed from Kenya; and Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri from Saudi Arabia are the candidates still in the running for the director-general position at the World Trade Organization, after the first round of winnowing. The second round of winnowing will be done with member states from Sept. 24 to Oct. 6. The second round will narrow the list to two candidates. After this, the timeline for the third round, to select the one candidate by consensus, will be announced.

Egypt recently passed a bill that will simplify customs procedures by reducing costs and the time it takes to release cargo, according to a Sept. 18 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The bill, which must first be signed by the Egyptian president before becoming law, would create an electronic cargo tracking system and a “risk management system,” and improve settlements for customs disputes by allowing “tariff payers” to file appeals before heading to arbitration. The bill would also introduce duty exemptions for medical supplies imported by government and university hospitals, and create a temporary customs warehouse system to store goods at entry points and prevent backlogs. Other provisions will help certain importers more easily pay customs fees, reduce clearance times for certain items and establish a ceiling for service fees payable to the country’s customs authority.

The Canada government issued the following trade-related notice as of Sept. 18 (some may also be given separate headlines):

Singapore Customs is urging fruit and vegetable importers to evaluate whether they underpaid their Goods and Services Taxes and to submit voluntary disclosures for any unpaid duties, according to a Sept. 18 notice. The agency said unpaid duties may have been caused by a “difference between the quantity and value” of imports declared to customs in the permit and the actual quantity and value of the fruits and vegetables imported. Importers who submit incorrect declarations can face a one-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $10,000 or the “equivalent amount of duty and GST payable, whichever is higher.”

India will begin random sampling of certain imported LED products to make sure they are complying with the country’s standards, according to a Sept. 17 notice from India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade. The country’s customs will randomly select certain LED products and “control gear” for those products to be sent to labs for testing, the notice said, and imports that fail to meet Indian standards will be “sent back” or destroyed “at the cost of the importer.”

Registration and licensing applications for the State Department’s Defense Export Control and Compliance System will be unavailable 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. EDT Sept. 22, a Sept. 18 notice said. The system will be down for scheduled maintenance, the State Department said, and users should save work in progress before the downtime begins.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency extended the comment period on an information collection related to letters of attestation for exports of controlled medical exports, FEMA said in a notice released Sept. 17. The agency previously requested comments on the information collection, but said it received none (see 2007160025). FEMA plans to submit the information collection to the Office of Management and Budget for review and clearance. Comments are due Oct. 21.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs began a review of a final rule from the Bureau of Industry and Security related to its “national security license application review policy” for China, Russia and Venezuela. OIRA received the rule Sept. 17.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his fellow New York colleague, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and the Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, urging them to monitor the elimination of Class 6 and Class 7 pricing programs in Canadian dairy, the avoidance of geographical indications for cheese names in Mexico, and the implementation of more generous tariff rate quotas for dairy imports in Canada. “While the new tariff-rate quota commitments were intended to provide U.S. dairy producers with greater access to Canada’s dairy market, it is our understanding that Canada’s announced TRQs place U.S. producers at a disadvantage and are inconsistent with the market access provisions secured in agreement,” they wrote Sept. 15.