The Foreign Trade Zone Board has issued a memorandum¹ stating that the deferred and possibly reduced duty benefits provided by the FTZ Act² for imported merchandise admitted into a FTZ for use as production equipment begins when the FTZ manufacturing/processing application is pending approval.

The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has issued two notices that either reissue or revoke an ocean transportation intermediary (OTI) license, as follows:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology posts drafts and changes to foreign technical regulations for manufactured products which may be considered technical barriers to trade and are therefore required to be reported to the World Trade Organization, which distributes the information to WTO Member countries.

The Food and Drug Administration has posted revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:

Various U.S. government agencies are seeking comments on the following information collections for which they have requested or intend to request Office of Management and Budget approval or extension of approval (see notices for specific details):

In addition, the International Trade Commission issues a number of AD, CV, patent, and other notices which do not warrant a full summary.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a revised CSMS message on the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s requirement that plant materials be reported on the Lacey Act declaration using standardized units of measure (such as kg, m, m2, and m3), effective May 1, 2010.

Senior U.S. trade officials encouraged China to create an open environment for innovation and make progress on other priority trade issues at the first-ever Mid-Year Review for the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. The U.S. is focusing on indigenous innovation, improving intellectual property rights enforcement, and ending regulations that block U.S. agricultural exports.

The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls has issued an addition to its Guidelines for Preparing Electronic Agreements concerning re-baselined agreements, which states that applicants must immediately implement certain changes regarding the value entered in Block 12 of the DSP-5 vehicle. The value must be the total value of the proposed re-baselined agreement, among other things.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has published notice of the following voluntary recalls: