U.S. Customs and Border Protection is collaborating with the trade community in an effort to evaluate and improve the performance of CBP’s Centers of Excellence and Expertise.
The Centers are industry-focused and account-based operational organizations processing post-release trade activities. They are aligned by 10 key industry sectors in strategic locations at ports of entry across the U.S. and are the point of connectivity between the trade community and CBP operations. The Centers are intended to increase the uniformity of practices across ports of entry, facilitate the timely resolution of trade compliance issues nationwide, and strengthen CBP’s ability to protect the U.S. economy.
In November 2023 the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee established a new working group to evaluate the successes, efficiencies, and opportunities for enhancement of the Centers, which have now been in operation for ten years. The working group met three times in recent months and developed the following recommendations, which COAC approved at its quarterly meeting earlier this month. The working group plans to meet bi-weekly in the upcoming quarter to develop further recommendations.
- COAC believes assigning importers to Centers based upon their importer of record number and primary product line has created gaps in expertise and outreach and is therefore urging CBP to develop more accessible information to provide importers and their brokers with transparent and clear instructions for changing the Center to which they are assigned.
- CBP should expand and enhance its sharing of Center-specific data with the trade, to include information such as the total number of importers handled by each Center, the number of partner accounts at each Center, the entry and post-entry volume processed by each Center, and the number of CBP staff assigned to each Center.
- The Centers should develop programs for enhancing visibility and outreach to small and mid-sized importers and their brokers; e.g., enhancements to the Centers’ webpage and regular calls with Center accounts.
- CBP should ensure that the Centers receive sufficient resources for regular outreach, including more CBP on-site visits with importers that wish to partner with the Centers to enhance compliance.
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