In recent months, the spotlight on forced labor has increased significantly due to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. To address this problematic issue, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have announced their plans to deploy innovative strategies, such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention measure, to better detect goods that are suspected of being produced with forced labor from Xinjiang, China or any other region in the world.
By utilizing a combination of intelligence-gathering methods and data analysis capabilities working in partnership with other governmental authorities and private sector stakeholders, this measure carefully crafts together an arsenal of tools necessary for combating unethical production models imposed by some industrial sectors both domestically and internationally while strengthening supply chain integrity worldwide.
One critical measure scheduled to be deployed is the requirement of Chinese postal codes in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
Per CBP:
Three new validations will be performed when:
- The People’s Republic of China (CN) is selected as a manufacturer’s country of origin for entry,
- CN is selected as a manufacturer’s country of origin when a Manufacturer Identification Code (MID) is created, or
- An existing MID with Country of Origin ‘CN’ is updated.
The validations will be:
- Postal code will be a required field.
- Users will receive an error message if the postal code provided is not a valid Chinese postal code.
- Users will receive a warning message when an Uyghur region postal code has been provided.
If US Customs issues a warning message, the broker should reach out to the importer to confirm the origin of the goods in order to request an exception.
Importers should be in discussions with their suppliers about the regulation and new requirements, requiring full the manufacturing address including the related postal code for all cargo of Chinese origin.
While we understand that adding extra steps in the process can be an added difficulty, in the interest of protecting human rights, it’s a short hiccup in an honorable mission. If you’ve got questions about how this impacts your cargo, or you’re concerned about the integrity of your supply chain, reach out to Argents today for more information and guidance.