APL REPORTS NEAR 100% COMPLIANCE WITH U.S. MANIFEST RULE

APL REPORTS NEAR 100% COMPLIANCE WITH U.S. MANIFEST RULE    APL reported that its worldwide organization and customers were able to comply fully with the new 24-hour prior manifest transmission rule since U.S. Customs formally enforced the rule last Sunday (Feb. 2).
   “We have had a very successful start, give or take a handful of non-compliant items and minor system hiccups,” said Ted Fordney, APL’s vice president of sales process, customer support and e-commerce. APL regards the few incidents of non-compliance as statistically insignificant and transitional.
   “They did not result in no load,” Fordney stressed. More than 99 percent complied fully with the new U.S. Customs ruling.
   The ruling applies to all containerized shipments to the United States and requires carriers to send detailed cargo manifests to U.S. Customs 24 hours before the loading on a U.S.-bound ship.
   APL and other carriers said that compliance improved rapidly in the weeks preceding the Feb. 2 deadline, even in areas that did not have a high percentage of compliance during the U.S. Customs’ 60-day grace period.
   Carriers said that the percentage of shipments from Hong Kong that were documented in time and with the level of information required ranged from 25 percent to 70 percent, depending on the carriers, only two weeks before the Feb. 2 deadline. But Hong Kong and other shippers have now adopted the ruling requirements, according to industry sources. APL said that it worked with its customers to “road test” the tighter documentation requirements.
   Fordney said that the Feb. 2 weekend has been dubbed “penalty weekend,” because it marked the end of the grace period of U.S. Customs when it refrained from imposing fines for non-compliance.
   Fewer shipments were made from Asia last weekend because of the Chinese New Year factory closures, but APL does not expect compliance problems from Asia when full cargo volumes resume in the next weeks and months.
   In a few cases, shippers had to re-manifest shipment data because they had not met the full requirements, but these did not result in no loads, Fordney explained. U.S. Customs has the authority to issue a “no load” order to the carrier if a shipment mentioned on the vessel manifest is not fully compliant.