CBP Posts Details on Upcoming Chinese Postal Code Requirement, Seeks Trade Input
CBP in recent days posted draft ACE requirements and a trade information notice on its upcoming requirement for the Chinese postal code. As discussed in a recent ACE call (see 2210270064), the new data element will be required when China is selected as a manufacturer’s country of origin for an entry, or when China is the manufacturer’s country of origin on a new or updated manufacturer ID, CBP said in the trade information notice released Nov. 2.
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The agency is setting up a Trade Support Network working group to "get input from the trade community on the proposed impacts of this enhancement," CBP said in a document sent in a Nov. 3 CSMS message. Specifically, CBP is seeking feedback on challenges with the proposed implementation of the requirement and "proposed alternative implementation approaches to mitigate these concerns," as well as time needed by the trade community for testing in the ACE certification environment and the date that should be set for deployment to ACE production. CBP may limit participation in the working group. Requests to participate are due by Nov. 10, CBP said.
Deployment of the new requirement is on hold while the TSN discussions play out. CBP “will deploy the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Region Alert enhancement to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) on a date to be determined,” the agency said in the information notice. Associated programming changes will be deployed to the ACE certification environment on Nov. 8, CBP said in a Nov. 3 CSMS message.
The new postal code requirement will be used to "provide an early notification to importers of goods that may have been produced in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) which would be subject to” the UFLPA, CBP said in the information notice. Once the new capability is deployed, ACE users that get a warning message that a “Uyghur region postal code has been provided” should “notify the importer(s) of the rebuttable presumption established by UFLPA.”
“Previously created MIDs will not need to be updated. However, when the manufacturer country is China, the system will generate an error message for the user to transmit postal code,” CBP said.
CBP released a draft update to the ACE Cargo Release CBP and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) document on Nov. 2 to include the new postal code requirement. The draft version includes changes to records SE 36 and SE 56, adding a note to specify that, “When the party type is MF (manufacturer), a valid Chinese postal code is required.” CBP also released a draft new cargo release condition codes document on Nov. 3, adding new error codes 260 for "postal code required for the country," 261 for "invalid postal code for the country" and 262 for "UFLPA flag XUAR postal code."
CBP posted a draft update to its CATAIR on ACE manufacturer IDs on Nov. 1, adding to the section on record identifier $4 that a postal code is required for Chinese manufacturers, in addition to Canadian manufacturers.