Kazakhstan backs off U.S. export declaration demand

Kazakhstan backs off U.S. export declaration demand To the relief of American shippers, the Kazakhstan government has called off its demand for copies of U.S. export declarations to accompany shipments entering the Central Asian country.
   On Nov. 27, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a law that amended the country’s customs code and removed a recent requirement for copies of U.S. export declarations as a condition to enter these shipments in the country. The Kazakh government at one point even considered implementing a requirement for notarized copies of U.S. shipper’s export declarations or commercial invoices stamped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
   Both options were quickly deemed unreasonable because the U.S. Census Bureau receives about 98 percent of export declarations electronically and CBP doesn’t issue stamps for export documents. Census regulations also require the agency to maintain confidentiality of export data.
   The Kazakh government argued that it needed the export declarations to verify that duty was properly declared on U.S. goods entering the country. The requirement not only impacted commercial shipments, but also express packages and diplomatic pouches.
   To avoid having their goods sit at the Kazakh border or returned to the United States, some shippers passed copies of export declarations to Kazakh customs.
   “We’re well aware of U.S. companies that are turning over their documentation,” said Dale C. Kelly, chief of the Census Foreign Trade Division’s Regulations, Outreach and Education Branch, to attendees at the International Trade Data Users conference in Washington Tuesday. “For some companies, it’s easier to give in rather than not.”
   Census, along with the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan, International Trade Administration, State Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, worked closely with Kazakhstan to amend its customs code, Kelly said.
   According to Census figures, U.S. companies exported $646 million worth of goods to Kazakhstan in 2006, and up to $523 million worth between January and August 2007.
   The U.S. government plans to monitor Kazakhstan’s implementation of the customs code amendment to exempt U.S. exports from the documentary requirement. “We will continue to follow this,” Kelly said.
   Census occasionally runs into similar requirements imposed by other countries. Under pressure from the United States, for example, Costa Rica in 2004 backed off a requirement for importers to produce U.S. export declarations with their shipments.
   Census recently discovered that Honduras has started asking for copies of U.S. export declarations as part of the import paperwork. “We’re writing letters to our contacts in the Honduran government to let them know this is against U.S. law,” Kelly said. ' Chris Gillis