HONG KONG SIGNS ONTO CSI

HONG KONG SIGNS ONTO CSI    U.S. Customs has signed a Container Security Initiative with the government of Hong Kong.
   Initiated by Customs in January, CSI is designed to enhance the security of global maritime shipping. About 200 million ocean containers move between the world’s top seaports, and nearly 50 percent of the value of all U.S. imports arrives by container each year.
   A core element of CSI involves placing Customs inspectors at foreign seaports before they are shipped to America. The goal of CSI is to detect smuggled weapons of mass destruction or related components.
   The port of Hong Kong is one of the world’s largest, ranking number one in terms of the flow of the containers into the United States. It ranks number one in the world in terms of the number of cargo containers handled. Last year, nearly 560,000 sea cargo containers entered'America from the port of Hong Kong.
   Hong Kong is the second CSI pilot port in Asia, behind Singapore, which signed a CSI agreement port Friday. Other countries involved in CSI are Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany.