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“Higher tariffs have never proven to be a wise solution for American economic growth,” said Stephanie Lester, RILA vice president for international trade. “RILA supports economic engagement with China and addressing our trade gap with China. We firmly oppose legislation that threatens to cut off access to the U.S. market and drive up prices for consumers.”

RILA has warned that higher tariffs would negatively effect U.S. businesses and its consumers.

To read more about RILA’s reaction, click here.

Link to register: http://ow.ly/1wDDg

The General System of Preferences allows developing nations to export selected goods to the United States duty-free and the Andean Trade Preference Act gives similar benefits for exporters in Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru in exchange for cooperation in counter-narcotics efforts.

“As Congress and the administration increasingly shift their attention to job creation, we encourage them to remember the important role trade can play in boosting the U.S. economy through exports,” said Chuck Dittrich, vice president for regional trade initiatives.

Extending the programs for one more year will give the U.S. government opportunity to analyze all preference programs available.

To continue reading, click here.

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ, November 18, 2009 — Management Dynamics, a leading provider of Global Trade Management solutions, today announced the release of Trade Wizards 10.0, a Web-based portal to trade content from 122 countries that facilitates the research of complex trade questions. The new release makes it easier for companies to classify products, calculate landed costs and perform document determination at the Harmonized Schedule (HS) level.  In addition, a new user experience allows users to manage their searches and ultimately find information faster.

“Trade Wizards is an invaluable tool for our global trade team and we use it daily to quickly and accurately classify our products, determine applicable import or export controls, or to answer a question from the business on total landed cost,” said Glenda Welch, Director of Corporate Logistics and Transportation, Belkin International. “The latest version of Trade Wizards is much easier to use, allowing us to conduct our research more efficiently and to fully tap into Management Dynamics’ trade content library including the new HS-based document templates.” 

Management Dynamics’ Trade Wizards 10.0 enables the user to make quick, interactive queries using a standard Web browser to calculate landed cost, screen for restricted trade parties, search for HS and Export Control Number (ECN) classifications, identify applicable regulatory controls, and determine trade documents. Management Dynamics maintains the trade content needed to answers these questions for 122 countries or approximately 99 percent of the world market. What used to require many hours to manually research trade rules and regulations can be achieved in minutes using Trade Wizards 10.0.

New key features available on Trade Wizards 10.0 include:

• New Classification Workflow – Perform complex searches that include the tariff number and either a legal or common term to quickly find relevant classifications.  Also, searches may be defined with complete Boolean logic and search results are displayed in a tree format to simplify the navigation to a classification.

• Landed Cost Calculator Scenarios – Build landed cost scenarios with multiple origin countries to quickly identify the minimum landed costs with respect to product invoice, duty, VAT, excise, other governmental charges, transportation and insurance.

• Restricted Party Screening – Screen with an improved screening engine and access to Management Dynamics’ coverage of 94 restricted party lists offering the highest level of compliance with the lowest rate of false positives.

• Document Determination – Determine the documents required for exporting and importing based on country of export, country of import, and HS number. Results returned include hundreds of documents required for exports, imports, preferential agreements and product specific documents based on the HS number provided.

Trade Wizards 10.0 functionality is available in a highly intuitive user experience with online help that can be used immediately with no user training.

 “As businesses continue to globalize at a fast pace, it is important for supply chain teams to have the resources they need to keep up with the ever-changing trade regulations and supporting content,” said Nathan Pieri, SVP Marketing & Product Management, Management Dynamics, Inc. “The latest Trade Wizards 10.0 release takes a big step forward on usability and ultimately makes it easier for users to accurately answer their toughest trade questions.”

The inspectors were replaced with 1,400 agents who have undergone background checks and months of training, Tax Administration Service spokesman Pedro Canabal said yesterday. He said the previous inspectors were not rehired when their contracts expired.

This action took place as a result of increased drug gangs and tax evasion.

To read more, click here.

From this article, I have composed 5 simple tips on how to reduce costs in your company as an importer:

1. View your import tax policy. Unlike import tax duties, import duties can change dramatically. How you classify your product, the type of packaging and assembly determines the particular rate you receive. Knowing you have the ability (with a little research) to recatergorize your product can help reduce costs.

2.Understand the subtle differences with the tariff schedule. Pay attention to how your product is labeled. An example from the article was an oversized t-shirt can be labeled as either a nightshirt or a swim suit cover. The swim suit cover had an increased rate of almost 7 percent compared to the nightshirt. Make sure its clear how your product is used. Furthermore, researching  the location your product is assembled can reduce costs. Should your product be imported pre-assembled? Or, is it more cost effective to import the parts and assemble domestically? You may be surprised from your research.

3. Audit your Supply chain. This may be commonsense, but many companies may just go through the motions and not notice extra costs popping up here and there.  For example, a U.S.-based wholesaler orders $1,000 worth of handbags from a France vendor. The vendor, in turn, orders the handbags from a factory in Manila for $750. If the American wholesaler can show through purchase orders that there was an arms-length sale between the France and Manila companies, and the handbags are clearly destined for the United States, the customs duties would be assessed against the $750, rather than the $1,000. Your audit trail will prove this transaction to the American government for tax purposes.

4.Discuss tactics with your ventor. Keep your ventors in the loop about tax breaks, this can help keep costs low and give you more for your money. Deciding on where you manufacture your product and where it is assembled, again, makes a difference for both you and the vendor.

5.Practice tariff engineering. According to CFO, “tariff engineering is the practice of designing and marketing a product with a tariff schedule in mind.” Understand how you will market the product. The terms and use of the product derives back to tip #2, how you classify your product can help you save money.  

“How you import products is actually a science. If you know the [importing] categories and how to work with the categories, you’ll save your company money.” states  Billy Pymm, CFO of Maverik Lacrosse

For further information on how to reduce costs and understand the science of global trade download this best practice white paper from Management Dynamics, inc., Five Best Practices to Reduce International Freight Costs.

 To read the full article, click here.