The State Department approved a potential $115 million military sale to Croatia, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in an Oct. 30 press release. The sale includes two UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, engines and navigation systems. The principal contractors are General Electric Aircraft Company of Lynn, Massachusetts, and Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft Company.
Italy recently introduced a series of new value-added tax measures, including some that increase penalties for violations, KPMG said in an Oct. 30 post. Among several changes, the measures increase penalties for criminal violations of VAT rules, including filing false VAT returns, failing to file a return, fraudulent reporting on invoices and “concealment or destruction” of documents, the post said. The increased penalties include longer prison sentences.
Mexico is extending increased duties on a range of textiles, apparel and footwear products through 2024, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council said in an Oct. 31 report. Mexico is imposing a 25 percent duty on 274 apparel and made-up textile tariff lines and a 25 percent or 30 percent duty on footwear tariff lines through Sept. 30, 2021, the report said. Those duties are scheduled to fall to 20 percent on Oct. 1, 2024.
Indonesia is preparing safeguard policies for textile imports to protect its domestic textile industry, the country’s Ministry of Trade said Oct. 31, according to an unofficial translation. An Indonesian trade official said the safeguard policies may include both temporary and permanent measures and suggested the country is close to imposing them, saying the Trade Ministry has “finished” deliberations on the measures. The safeguard could be “quite suppressing” for imports to the textile industry, Indonesia said.
India’s government reaffirmed it will only use domestically produced solar cells for solar-energy products, potentially decreasing demand for imported solar cells, according to an Oct. 31 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. While the requirement had previously been in place, HKTDC said, the government’s announcement followed reports that contractors were ignoring the order and were using imported “semi-processed” solar cells “with only minimal processing actually taking place in India.” The move is aimed at boosting domestic production of solar cells “while also insulating the country’s manufacturing sector from being undermined by cheap imports,” the report said.
Two oil executives pleaded guilty to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act after trying to use bribes to secure oil and gas contracts, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 30 press release. Cyrus Ahsani and Saman Ahsani, the CEO and COO of a Monaco-based intermediary company, tried to bribe officials in multiple countries with millions of dollars, the press release said.
As the U.S. and China look to soon sign phase one of their trade agreement, the two sides are planning another trade call for Nov. 1, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Oct. 31, according to an unofficial translation. The scheduled call comes days after Chile announced it was canceling APEC, the trade summit where President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping expected to sign the deal’s first phase (see 1910300037).
Parties to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will meet in early November to plan final discussions for the deal’s ratification, Japan said in an Oct. 31 press release, according to an unofficial translation. The parties “agreed to make every effort to find an acceptable landing point for all countries on the remaining issues,” the press release said. Japan also said it plans to sign a “business partnership” with Thailand that will include a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between Japanese and Thai companies.
The Terrorist Financing Targeting Center announced joint sanctions on 25 people, banks and entities affiliated with Iranian terrorism groups in the center’s “largest joint designation to date,” the Treasury Department said in an Oct. 30 press release. The TFTC -- composed of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar -- sanctioned a “vast network” of businesses funding the Basij Resistance Force and people associated with Hizballah, Treasury said.
A former top Commerce and trade official said the U.S.’s recent efforts to reform export controls and foreign investment screening are some of the most consequential developments the trade industry has seen in years. “The passage of [the Export Control Reform Act] and [the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act] together represents one of the biggest changes in trade compliance probably in at least a generation,” said Chris Padilla, former undersecretary for international trade and former assistant U.S. trade representative.