On 21 September 2017, the Secretary of Foreign Commerce published in the Diário Oficial da União (Official Gazette) an announcement that the federal government is holding a public consultation on the New Import Process, as part of the Single Foreign Trade Portal Program, starting 21 September for a period of 30 days. The recast, which should be implemented by the end of 2018, will benefit more than forty thousand importers.
On July 14, 2017, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published in the Federal Register a notice providing country-by-country allocations of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 (October 1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2018) in-quota quantity of the tariff-rate quotas for imported raw cane sugar, certain sugars, syrups and molasses (also known as refined sugar), specialty sugar, and sugar-containing products.
Decree No. 9029 of April 10, 2017, which will enter into force on 11 May 2017, made some changes in the Chamber of Foreign Trade (CAMEX) and its committees.
The WTO announced that Brazil updated WTO members on the measures it has taken to ensure the safety of its meat and meat products at a meeting of the WTO’s Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures on 22 and 23 March. The WTO said:
On 16 December 2016, the Diário Oficial da União (Official Gazette) published CAMEX Resolution № 125 (15-12-16) which amends the Common Nomenclature of Mercosur (NCM) and the Common External Tariff (TEC), the List of Exceptions to the TEC and the List of Exceptions for Information and Telecommunications Goods (BIT) to adapt to the modifications of the Harmonized System (HS-2017).
Member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are required under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) to report to the WTO all proposed technical regulations that could affect trade with other Member countries. The WTO Secretariat distributes this information in the form of “notifications” to all Member countries. The chart below summarizes notifications from the WTO in English received and posted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) during the past month.
On 23 August 2016, the new UK Department for International Trade (DIT) released a “Survey to identify trade and investment barriers in 7 overseas markets”.
The UK government is planning to hold joint economic and trade committee meetings with Brazil, India, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam by the end of 2016. The aim of these dialogues is to discuss bilateral trade and investment issues and to strengthen the UK’s economic, industrial and commercial ties with these markets.
On August 23, 2016, the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) launched the Import Monitoring Tool. The ITC said it is providing this web-based tool to allow users to monitor changes in U.S. imports for the latest eight quarters. The tool was developed in response to the provisions of section 603 of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 .
Decree No. 8823 of July 28, 2016, established that, from 5 August 2016, the Executive Secretary of the Foreign Trade Chamber – CAMEX, which previously operated in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Services, will be part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thus, the documents addressed to CAMEX must be filed with the General Protocol of the Foreign Ministry (commonly known as Itamaraty, after the palace it occupies), located on the Esplanade of Ministries,…