To prevent prohibited goods from entering the U.S., Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will now require more information from importers about the true origin of their China-made goods.
Background
The Uyghur Forced Labor Law (UFLPA) was signed into law in December 2021 and implemented in June of last year to prevent human trafficking and other abuses of human rights. The law is designed to discourage US consumers from being complicit in these abuses by banning Chinese goods made with forced labor and to control access to U.S Markets and supply chains from Xinjiang. It means that CBP will be monitoring Chinese imports and target supply chains that are originating from Xinjiang region.
Update
CBP recently announced that it will deploy the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Region Alert enhancement to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). Effective March 18th, 2023, importers will be required to provide a verified Chinese postal code for the origin of their goods as a part of the ACE validation process.
What will change?
- Three new validations will be performed when COO of CN is selected, when an MID is created for a Chinese manufacturer or an existing MID is updated for a Chinese manufacturer.
What will the validation include?
- Postal Code will be a required filed.
- Users will receive an error message when a CN postal code is not a valid code.
- Users will receive a warning message when a postal code from the Uyghur region is selected.
If a warning message is received that the goods are potentially produced with forced labor, Laufer Group will notify the importer of the rebuttable presumption established by UFLPA.
Recommendations
- It is recommended that importers currently working with factories in China perform due diligence and trace its supply chain to ensure they do not import any goods made in whole or in part by forced labor from the Xinjiang Region.
- Please check your Chinese MID’s and remind importers that they will need to ensure that all commercial documents now show a zip code for the manufacturer’s address.
Unless CBP postpones the ACE enhancement deployment, Customs will begin assessing all manufacturers when country of origin is China beginning March 18th, 2023.
Helpful resources:
https://www.dhs.gov/uflpa-entity-list
https://www.cbp.gov/document/guidance/ace-development-and-deployment-schedule
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Should you need further information or have any concerns or queries, please contact your local Laufer customer service or sales representative or by emailing compliance@laufer.com.