The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and CBP will now “accept electronically produced versions of phytosanitary certificates” for imported plants and plant products, CBP said in a CSMS message. “Importers and brokers may upload the electronic documents to the Automated Commercial Environment using the Document Imaging System or provide them by other means, such as email attachments,” it said. “Acceptable phytosanitary certificates include scanned copies of original certificates, electronic certificates created through a participating country’s ePhyto system, or signed paper forms. Certificates should be legible and include APHIS-required statements. In addition, we will allow precleared consignments to be accompanied by an email from APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) with an electronic copy of PPQ Form 203 attached, if the original form is not available,” APHIS said.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will begin enforcing Lacey Act import declaration requirements on 29 new tariff lines on Oct. 1, 2020, it said in a notice. Products newly covered by the Lacey At requirements include essential oils in chapter 33; trunks, cases and suitcases in chapter 42; oriented strand board and wooden containers and pallets in chapter 44; musical instruments in chapter 92; and monopods, bipods, tripods and similar articles of wood in chapter 96.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has not yet seen any impacts to cargo or inspections as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the agency said, according to an update from the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America sent March 23. “At the current time we have not experienced any impacts to cargo related to changes in CBP or USDA APHIS activities,” APHIS said. As for inspections, the agency is also seeing no delays. “We have moved to mostly digital imaging to enable continued pest identification services. Plant Inspection Stations and Ports are operational. The majority of our policy office staff are in telework status and still accessible by phone and email as normal,” APHIS said. The agency has informed CBP that “USDA will accept scanned versions of phytosanitary certificates uploaded into DIS while the emergency lasts,” it said. “We understand that many brokers are having difficulty accessing offices or getting required documents from the country of origin. We will be sending this information out shortly,” APHIS said, according to the NCBFAA.
CBP agriculture specialists will accept electronic submissions of all import documents, including veterinary health certificates, via the ACE Document Image System (DIS) for some products, CBP New York said in an informational pipeline dated March 23. The new policy, meant to address concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, will remain in effect through May 16, CBP New York said.
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The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will allow imports of jujube fruit from China, it said in a notice. Importation will be subject to conditions including an import permit, phytosanitary certificate from the Chinese government, registration of production locations and packinghouses, and port of entry inspections, as well as treatment for pests if grown or packed south of the 33rd parallel, among other things. The notice takes effect March 12.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service should allow for a “soft enforcement” period following its deadline for ACE filing of APHIS Core partner government agency (PGA) data in August, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America said in comments to the agency dated March 4. While the Aug. 3 deadline proposed by the agency allows enough time for brokers to get ready for mandatory filing (see 2001310042), some flexibility in implementation would “guard against unwelcome disruptions in trade,” the NCBFAA said.
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