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CCBFA ANNOUNCES 2023 SCHOLARSHIP

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The Chicago Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association is pleased to announce our Annual Scholarship Program to benefit the employees and immediate families of our regular members or associate members in the Greater Chicago area.

The Chicago Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association would like to recognize excellence in education and encourage continuing studies. Our Scholarship Program is designed to assist deserving students in meeting their educational goals.

WHICH COMPANIES QUALIFY?

  • A qualifying Regular or Associate Member company must be in good member standing for the previous 12 months and be physically located in the Chicagoland area.
  • A qualifying candidate must be employed at a Member company or an immediate family member of an employee of the qualifying company.

WHICH APPLICANTS QUALIFY?

To qualify for the scholarship, students must meet the following criteria:

  • The candidate must be enrolled in a 2-year or 4-year college, university, or an accredited junior college program. Qualified high school seniors of the class of 2023, who are enrolled for the fall 2023 term. will also be considered. Regrettably, we cannot accept applicants who are working on a postgraduate degree.
  • A minimum cumulative 3.0 GPA (based on a 4.0 scale) is required for college students and high school seniors.
  • Applicants must be an employee of a member firm, their spouse, their children, or their legal stepchildren who reside within the bounds of metro Chicago.  Grandchildren, brothers, sisters, and similar relations are not included.

HOW TO APPLY:

Complete the scholarship application including your most recent transcript (or report card for graduating high school seniors), your acceptance letter from your University, College or Accredited Junior college,  and a personal narrative as detailed on the application.

The committee will evaluate all applications received on or before 5 PM April 9, 2023 . The scholarship awardees will be announced on or about May 5th 2023. Scholarship payments will be made to the educational institution identified on the application. Note that any funds that are not used in the first semester of the 2023/24 school year must be returned to the association.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at Scholarship2023@ccbfa.org.

CCBFA Announces 2022 Scholarship

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The Chicago Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association is pleased to announce our annual scholarship program to benefit the employees and immediate families of our regular members or associate members in the Greater Chicago area.

The Chicago Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association would like to recognize excellence in education and encourage continuing studies. Our Scholarship Program is designed to assist deserving students in meeting their educational goals.

WHICH COMPANIES QUALIFY?

  • A qualifying Regular or Associate Member company must be in good member standing for the previous 12 months and be physically located in the Chicagoland area.
  • A qualifying candidate must be employed at a Member company or an immediate family member , as described below, of  an employee of the qualifying company.

WHICH APPLICANTS QUALIFY?

To qualify for the scholarship, students must meet the following criteria:

  • The candidate must be enrolled in a 2-year or 4-year college, university, or an accredited junior college program. Qualified high school seniors of the class of 2022, who are enrolled for the fall 2022 term. will also be considered. Regrettably, we cannot accept applicants who are working on a postgraduate degree.
  • A minimum cumulative 3.0 GPA (based on a 4.0 scale) is required for college students and high school seniors.
  • Applicants must be an employee of a member firm, their spouse, their children, or their legal stepchildren who reside within the bounds of metro Chicago.  Grandchildren, brothers, sisters and similar relations are not included.

HOW TO APPLY:

Download the 2022 Scholarship Application including your most recent transcript (or report card for graduating high school seniors) and a personal narrative as detailed on the application.

We welcome your application! Please email the completed application and all other required forms to Scholarship2022@ccbfa.org. The committee will evaluate all applications received on or before April 9, 2022. The scholarship awardees will be announced on May 30, 2022. Scholarship payments will be made to the educational institution identified on the application. Note that any funds that are not used in the first semester of the 2022/2023 school year must be returned to the association.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at the above email.

THE INS AND OUTS OF THE ACE PORTAL

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Dear Members, 

If you missed the chance to engage with the THE INS AND OUTS OF THE ACE PORTAL webinar live on Tuesday February 8, 2022, we have the VOD here for your utilization!

Come get tips and tricks to help you with the ACE Portal. Have you watched all the Videos on Reports? Have you read all the training Guides? We will cover things not included in the Videos and Guides.

We will cover the following and more: Export Reports, More on how to make your own reports not use the canned reports, How to add employees to your portal, How to remove employees from the portal when they no longer work for your company, How to best use the ADD/CVD tool, How to use the ISF tool, How to upload your documents in the portal for DIS , More in-depth on Post Summary Corrections, Protests in the Portal.

Speakers:  Carlos Rodriguez, Information Technology Specialist, National ACE / PGA SCO, Readiness and Deployment Branch, Trade Transformation Office, Office of Trade, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

CCBFA Announces 2021 Scholarship

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The Chicago Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association is pleased to announce our annual scholarship program to benefit the employees and immediate families of our regular members or associate members in the Greater Chicago area.

The Chicago Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association would like to recognize excellence in education and encourage continuing studies. Our Scholarship Program is designed toassist deserving students in meeting their educational goals.

WHICH COMPANIES QUALIFY?

  • A qualifying Regular or Associate Member company must be in good member standing for the previous 12 months and be physically located in the Chicagoland area.
  • A qualifying candidate must be employed at a Member company or an immediate family member , as described below, of  an employee of the qualifying company.

WHICH APPLICANTS QUALIFY?

To qualify for the scholarship, students must meet the following criteria:

  • The candidate must be enrolled in a 2-year or 4-year college, university, or an accredited junior college program. Qualified high school seniors of the class of 2021, who are enrolled for the fall 2021 term. will also be considered. Regrettably, we cannot accept applicants who are working on a postgraduate degree.
  • A minimum cumulative 3.0 GPA (based on a 4.0 scale) is required for college students and high school seniors.
  • Applicants must be an employee of a member firm, their spouse, their children, or their legal stepchildren who reside within the bounds of metro Chicago.  Grandchildren, brothers, sisters and similar relations are not included.

HOW TO APPLY:

Download the 2021 Scholarship Application including your most recent transcript (or report card for graduating high school seniors) and a personal narrative as detailed on the application.

We welcome your application! Please email the completed application and all other required forms to Scholarship2021@ccbfa.org. The committee will evaluate all applications received on or before April 9, 2020. The scholarship awardees will be announced on May 30, 2021. Scholarship payments will be made to the educational institution identified on the application. Note that any funds that are not used in the first semester of the 2021/2022 school year must be returned to the association.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at the above email.

Cargo Systems Messaging Service CSMS #41151809

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Cargo Systems Messaging Service  CSMS #41151809

Information on Bills Issued Prematurely for Some Informal Entries.

Due to the federal holiday on December 24, some informal entries were liquidated prematurely on December 25 with incorrect bill amounts. These bills will be cancelled, the entries will be re-liquidated, and any bills will be re-issued with the correct amounts.

US – Japan Free Trade Agreement Announced…

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CSMS #41149692 – U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement: Information on Claiming Preferential Treatment


The US-Japan Trade Agreement (“Agreement”) will enter into force on January 1, 2020.  This message is to inform the trade community of the requirements for claiming preferential treatment under this new Agreement. 

In order to receive preferential treatment, a good must be originating and meet all the requirements of the U.S.-Japan Agreement. 

Annex II to the Agreement specifies the rules of origin used to determine if a good qualifies for preferential tariff treatment or “originates” under the Agreement.  The product-specific rules (Annex II to the Agreement) specify the level of change of tariff classification that non-originating materials must undergo.  General Note 36 will be added to the HTSUS and will include the requirements of the Agreement. The links to the US-Japan Trade Agreement text and related documents are below.

FILING INSTRUCTIONS:

  • From January 1, 2020 through January 13, 2020, importers must pay duties on qualifying goods under the Agreement and request a preferential tariff retroactive claim by filing a post summary correction (PSC) to request the duty refund.  The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) will accept the new special program indicator ‘JP’ as a prefix to the eligible tariff number on January 14, 2020.
  • On or after January 14, 2020, ACE will accept the new special program indicator ‘JP’ as a prefix to the eligible tariff number. Importers claiming preferential treatment under the Agreement must include on the entry, the special program indicator “JP” as a prefix to the eligible tariff number for each qualifying good requesting such preference.

To claim preferential tariff treatment under the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, the following requirements must be met:

  1. Country of Origin must be ‘JP’
  2. Country of Export must be ‘JP’
  3. Once programmed in ACE, the Special Program indicator ‘JP’ must be placed before the eligible tariff number to make the claim. 
  4. Claims for preferential treatment under this Agreement are not exempt from the merchandise processing fee (class code 499 and class code 311).
  5. The tariff-rate quota allocation for beef from Japan is modified as follows:
    • The country specific Japan beef quota (200,000 kg) is eliminated and added to “other countries.” This updates the “other countries or areas” limit to 65,005,000 kg.
    • There is no change to the entry filing process. The ACE quota module will process eligible beef from Japan under the “Other countries or areas” quota.

More details on US-Japan implementing instructions will be provided on 

Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)

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On Tuesday, March 1st, the NCBFAA  released a Monday Morning eBriefing newsletter, which focused on the recent statement that was made by the United States Coast Guard (USCG).

According to the NCBFAA eBriefing,  the USCG took a moment to clarify its position on the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the new carrier guidelines that require the exporter that is listed on carrier’s master bill of lading to provide a certification of the Verified Gross Mass (VGM) of any container (including the tare weight of the container) tendered to the vessel operators.

There is no need to change processes

Admiral Paul Thomas of the USCG advised that the Coast Guard would need to implement the IMO’s changes through an appropriate regulatory rulemaking, before the IMO can compel the U.S. shippers and carriers to change their current business practices.

It was said that current ly the USCG feels that today’s process are     working as long as both the shipper and carrier has done their job    properly.  Since there is nothing deficient or inherently unsafe about existing export processes, the Coast Guard feels that there is no need to change processes and will not do anything to enforce the new VGM rules on either the U.S. shippers or carriers .

It is assumed that the carriers will not accept this and will continue to push U.S. exporters and OTIs to still provide a VGM  certificate.  This will be monitored carefully by the NCBFAA.