The Trump administration plans to soon issue export licenses to allow a “select few” U.S. companies to supply nonsensitive goods to Huawei, an Oct. 9 report in The New York Times said. Trump approved the step in a meeting last week, the report said, a little more than a month after the Commerce Department renewed the temporary general license for Huawei until Nov. 18 (see 1908190039).

Demand in global air freight markets is being significantly damaged by the U.S.-China trade war, according to the International Air Transport Association. August marked 10 consecutive months of year-on-year decreases in freight volumes, the IATA said, the longest such stretch since 2008. In addition, global export orders are continuing to fall, the association said, and emerging countries may be hurting the most because of their “higher sensitivity” to trade tensions and rising political instability.

In the Oct. 9 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The European Union is imposing a final “definitive” antidumping duty of €29.48 per kilogram ($32.35/kg) on its imports of U.S. urea and ammonium nitrate, it said in a notice in the Oct. 9 Official Journal. That rate will apply individually to the sole respondent to the EU’s investigation, CF Industries Holdings, Inc., as well as to all other U.S. exporters, the notice said. Duties will be assessed on entries on or after April 11, the date that the EU imposed preliminary interim measures (see 1904150062). No duties will be collected on entries before that date (including on or after March 22, when the EU imposed "registration" requirements.) The duty will remain in effect for a period of five years, and may be renewed for another five years in an expiry review at the end of that period. Duty rates will remain unchanged unless an interim review of the duties is requested.

Recent editions of Mexico's Diario Oficial list trade-related notices as follows:

The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of Oct. 9 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

Mexico’s Secretariat of Finance recently issued its 2019 edition of its General Regulations on Foreign Trade. Among other things, the new edition changes the deadline for customs clearance of disassembled machines, production lines or disassembled prefabricated buildings to 90 calendar days (previously it was a period of three months), said a circular from the Mexican Confederation of Customs Broker Associations (CAAAREM). The change takes effect Dec. 1, 2019. More information is available in a Latin American Confederation of Customs Brokers (CLAA) circular.

Singapore and Indonesia signed an agreement to link the countries’ National Single Windows to better “facilitate and secure trade,” Singapore Customs said in an Oct. 8 press release. The agreement on “electronic data exchange” aims to promote a “seamless, paperless and secure business environment” for trade, Singapore said. Benefits will include expedited clearance and improved supply chain security, the press release said. Singapore also said the agreement will lead to a “seamless and more efficient declaration process and ... greater ease and facilitation when trading between Singapore and Indonesia.”

China’s State Council adopted a draft regulation on Oct. 8 to improve the country’s “business environment” by easing market access, simplifying tax procedures and other measures, according to an Oct. 9 report by Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency. China stressed that “government services should be enjoyed with unified criteria by all types of market players on an equal basis” for both “domestic and foreign companies.”

China is increasing enforcement of compliance with measures aimed at countering commercial bribery by foreign companies, according to an Oct. 7 Lexology post from AnJie Law Firm. As companies increase efforts to comply with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, they may also have to review their compliance under China’s recently amended Anti-unfair Competition Act, the post said, which cracks down on “unlawful commercial activities” by both domestic and foreign companies. The changes are “set to become as big a focus area as domestic companies' compliance with foreign laws,” the law firm said.