Leon Lacroix

There are primarily 3 kinds of export companies that form the core of this activity:

1. Export Management Organization: from manufacture to final sale are handled by these exporters
2. Export Trading Corporation: these people generally focus of big markets and getting orders and then sourcing manufacturers and suppliers to execute the orders
3. Export Merchants: companies dealing in this premise generally source the supplies and repack and recondition them and export to various destinations across the globe.

While there is no defined rule for who needs to go through import compliance training within your business, it’s in your best interest to have all employees directly involved with trade to be updated.

It’s essential that your team is trained in all relevant areas to comply with your legal obligations.

The best way to determine who needs to be trained is to start by understanding your business processes and functions. Once you have a clear understanding of the different features of your business, you can begin to review applicable laws and regulations to their operations with an import audit and assessment.

This information will uncover gaps in your business operations since many trade laws and regulations are updated frequently. Along with frequent updates, trade regulations were not written with the need of business owners in mind. This means that it can be challenging to comply with U.S. import trade laws, and you may need a professional to help navigate uncertainties.

Confidentiality can apply to the product code and/or the partner country. Information about a product or partner may be considered commercially sensitive by the provider of the statistical information for the trade value, the quantity or the unit value (value/quantity) which can be considered a proxy for the price.

Product confidentiality: The real product code is replaced by a specific code dedicated to confidential trade. Save in exceptional cases, the real chapter (i.e. to the real HS2 code) is the minimum level of data provision. If possible, it is even recommended to keep information on the goods at the 3-digit level of the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC).

Partner Confidentiality: The real partner country code is replaced by a specific code used for ‘countries and territories not specified for commercial or military reasons’. A distinction is made between intra-EU trade (code QY) and extra-EU trade (code QZ).

An Importer of Record is an individual or legal entity that is responsible for ensuring that goods are imported in accordance with the local and international import legislation of a given destination. The Importer of Record IOR must be the entity that completes the import preparation, signs and submits the Import documentation and pays all the necessary charges, therefore if the end user does not want to go through the import procedure they can’t be the IoR.

A customs procedure code (CPC) is a code used on import and export declaration, which identifies the customs process which goods are being entered into and removed from.