Supply Chain Leaders Applaud International Trade Data System Completion

Supply chain giant UPS – which has long been a leading advocate for global trade – issued appropriate praise for President Obama on taking decisive action to reduce a major barrier to U.S. exports.

By completing the International Trade Data System (ITDS), the processing and approval times for U.S. businesses that export American-made goods and services will be cut from days to minutes.

“This Executive Order will be beneficial to improving our supply chain efficiency and moving goods and services that cross our borders,” says Scott Davis, UPS chairman and CEO. “This change will be particularly meaningful to our small and medium-sized customers that depend on global trade to grow their businesses and reach the 95 percent of consumers that live outside U.S. borders.”

Earlier this week, President Obama signed an Executive Order that will streamline the export/import process by allowing businesses to electronically transmit, through a “single window,” the data required by each of the U.S. Government agencies to import or export cargo. The Executive Order instructs all agencies to be compliant with the system by December 2016.

Davis is a member of the President’s Export Council, which has supported the goal of a single window to help facilitate commerce and increase compliance with trade laws.

Obama sets 2016 deadline for agencies to use trade-data system
By Zach Rausnitz

President Obama set a Dec. 31, 2016, deadline for federal agencies to use the International Trade Data System through an executive order Wednesday.

Before businesses can clear their goods for import or export, they have to submit documents, often on paper, to an assortment of federal agencies. The ITDS would let them submit all the required data electronically and all in one place. The system would then distribute the data to the agencies that need it.

Forty-eight agencies (.pdf), led by Customs and Border Protection, are working together to implement the system, required under the SAFE Port Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-347).

Obama’s executive order charges the board of directors for ITDS, which consists of representatives from the agencies, with choosing a standard set of data elements for the system to collect and share. The board also must publicize a timeline of agency plans to implement the new system.

In its report (.pdf) to Congress for 2013, the ITDS board noted problems funding the effort.

“In the past, competing priorities have resulted in delays in implementing ITDS priorities and ITDS funds being redirected for other uses,” the board said. “It is critical that progress on the current plan for implementing ITDS functions continue, so that the experience and knowledge developed in the preparation and planning for ITDS are not lost due to retirement and rotation of staff from the ITDS agencies.”

CBP’s appropriation for automation modernization has funded the ITDS almost entirely, and funds carry over from year to year. In fiscal 2013, the ITDS account began with $31 million. Nearly $5 million of that money was spent over the year, leaving the account with $26.2 million at the start of fiscal 2014.

Source: FierceGovernmentIT

Read the Paper: Trade Agreement Management: Survey Results and Best Practice Research