CENSUS PREPARES AES FILERS FOR STATE DEPARTMENT REQUIREMENTS

CENSUS PREPARES AES FILERS FOR STATE DEPARTMENT REQUIREMENTS    The U.S. Census Bureau shut down the education region of the Automated Export System Friday to implement the State Department’s Office of Defense Trade Controls enhancement for industry testing.
   This enhancement will allow AES filers to prepare for the new Office of Defense Trade Controls record and new data elements required by the State Department for filings involving U.S. Munitions List commodities, said Gerard J. Horner, chief of the AES Branch at Census’ Foreign Trade Division.
   In the first quarter of 2003, this program will be moved into the “live environment” to meet mandatory AES filing requirements for both U.S. Munitions List and Commerce Control List shipments under the 1999 Proliferation Prevention Act.
   There are no major program changes to AES for Commerce Control List shipments, except for increased edits on Export Control Classification Numbers and Commerce Department license numbers, Horner said.
   Census and Customs jointly developed AES several years ago to allow exporters and freight forwarders to electronically file shipper’s export declarations.
   Census uses the information from export declarations to compile the country’s trade statistics, while Customs uses it to target “high-risk” outbound shipments before they leave the United States.