Y2K CONCERNS FAIL TO PRODUCE PREDICTED RISE IN YEAR-END INVENTORIES

   Industry concerns about U.S. Customs system’s ability to process data in 2000 have failed to produce increased year-end inventories.
   On Nov. 29, Customs processed 79,100 data submissions in its Automated Commercial System, a 19-percent increase over the same time last year. The agency routinely experiences about a 10-percent increase in data submissions annually. This year’s increase is attributed mostly to a healthy economy.
   "We handled the increase well," said John B. Hill, Customs’ director of applications development for ACS. "But it wasn’t the tidal wave of data that was projected."
   Earlier this year, some industry analysts predicted a surge in imports
to boost companies’ inventories in the event of Customs and other Y2K
failures.
   So far, Y2K tests and actual systems events at Customs have been
successful. The agency finished reprogramming 6 million lines of code for Y2K in ACS last October.