CENSUS: PROPOSED BACM LEGISLATION WON?T WORK WITH TRADE STATISTICS

CENSUS: PROPOSED BACM LEGISLATION WONÆT WORK WITH TRADE STATISTICS    The U.S. Commerce Department's Census Bureau said proposed Customs modernization legislation by the Business Alliance for Customs Modernization won't work with government trade statistics requirements.
   The legislation, HR 4337, was recently picked up by the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee and inserted into its proposed bill for technical corrections to U.S. trade laws and miscellaneous duty suspension proposals.
   In that legislation, BACM has requested periodic filing of aggregate import information.
   “We need more data than less and we need it sooner than later,” said C. Harvey Monk Jr., chief of the Foreign Trade Division at Census, to a group of 600 executives at the American Association of Exporters and Importers meeting in New York.
   Monk said that under HR 4337, many of the trade data items that Census currently receives would be left out, such as district or port of entry, method of transport and cargo origin data.
   The agency would also not be able to meet the trade data requirements of other government agencies, such as the Import Administration, the International Trade Commission, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Army Corps of Engineers.
   “The bureau is interested in working with the trade to meet its needs and goals,” Monk said. “But it must recognize the bureaus' responsibilities to Congress and other government agencies.”
   “To think of that data after the fact doesn't make much sense,” said Carl Nielsen, director of import operations for the Health and Human Services departments of the Food and Drug Administration
   BACM said they should be able to file periodic entry data every 20 days as specified in the 1993 Customs Modernization Act (19 USC 1401).
   “Are they turning back the clock and negating the intent of congress?” asked James P. Finnegan, Sony's corporate trade strategy and compliance director and chairman of BACM. “We will work with Customs and Census to clarify the intent of the Mod Act.”