THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100472
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
The U.S. Customs Service chose the port of Hampton Roads on Thursday as a site for a pilot program to track and monitor exports.
Hampton Roads is one of the first five ports nationwide where the Customs Service will implement the new automated export program, which will provide a direct electronic link between exporters and the federal agency charged with overseeing them.
The other ports are Houston; Charleston, S.C.; Baltimore; and Long Beach, Calif., a Customs Service spokeswoman said. The program will start in June or July.
The system is expected to provide the government with more accurate and timely trade statistics, improve collection of harbor maintenance fees and make enforcement easier, said Sharon A. Mazur, the Customs Service's director of the automated export system.
It also will make it easier for exporters and shippers to move goods out of the country, Mazur said.
Currently, shippers record information about an export on a declaration form that must be sent within four days to a Customs facility in Indiana, where it is keyed in to the service's computer.
Under the automated system, shippers will enter the information directly into Customs' computer.
``This is just a more efficient way to do business,'' said Katie Carney, president of the Customs Brokers-Freight Forwarders Association of Virginia.
``It will provide for a more paperless environment, which we all want,'' said Carney, who is branch manager of the local office of a major freight forwarder and customs broker, Circle International Inc.
In addition to gathering the information it requires with this new system, the Customs Service will act as a clearinghouse for export information required by other government agencies, such the State Department, the Bureau of Export Administration and the Census Bureau, Mazur said.
Shippers currently provide export information directly to each government agency that requires it.
Instead of dealing with multiple government agencies, shippers will be able to ``one-stop shop'' for required export licenses, Carney said.
Freight forwarders and customs brokers will have to pay for the necessary software to work with the new systems, but should recoup their investment quickly, Carney said.
The Customs Service also estimates that it will be able to collect about $50 million in harbor maintenance fees a year that it can't collect now because it has no way to track it, Carney said.
The fees, which have been paid on an honor basis by shippers, are assessed on the value of exports and imports, and are used to fund harbor maintenance projects by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The automated export system was tested in 1993 in the port of Charleston. by CNB