California Fashion Association Holds Trade Seminar

 　　據(jù)專門從事美國海關法業(yè)務的美國修博國際律師事務所(SSSPO)李新宇和默懷恩(Brian Murphy)兩位律師介紹，加州時裝協(xié)會(California Fashion Association)今年5月11日舉辦了一次紡織品貿易專題研討會。

At the meeting, Ms. Janet Labooda, the highest ranking official in charge of textile affairs at the US Customs office, made a keynote speech on the state of the customs and Excise Department's textiles and clothing law enforcement in the United States. In addition to introducing the position of the US Customs on LDP/DDP pactions, importers' customs clearance and clothing declaration prices, it also implied that the US customs would take large-scale enforcement actions against fraudulent practices in textile and clothing imports.

Ms. Labooda's speech dealt with the import and export statistics of textiles and clothing in the United States in recent years, the implementation of free trade agreements (and preferential trade treatment), the qualification of importers, LDP/DDP pactions and low import prices.

The latter two aspects are closely related to many Chinese garment manufacturers' exports to the US.

According to statistics, in the 2009 fiscal year, the total amount of textiles and clothing imports in the United States amounted to US $95 billion 400 million, and a total of 10 billion 200 million US dollars were collected. The two figures decreased by 11% and 9% respectively compared with the previous year.

Nevertheless, the US Customs Tariff of $22 billion 100 million last year still has up to 46% of its imports from textiles and clothing.

In view of this, the US Department of Customs will continue to strengthen its enforcement of tax evasion in textile and clothing imports in the future.

In the 2009 fiscal year, the total value of textiles and clothing from China accounted for 40% of the similar imports in the United States, far ahead of the second place in Mexico (only 6%).

Imports from China accounted for 36% of the total import value of clothing according to country statistics. Similarly, Vietnam ranked the second largest in Vietnam (8%).

Ms. Labooda stressed at the seminar that the customs will continue to strengthen the investigation of the low price behavior of textiles and clothing from China, and will further examine the customs clearance of us importers, understand the latter's familiarity with imported goods, and whether they have fulfilled the "REASONABLECARE" obligation.

For the controversial LDP/DDP deal, Ms. Labooda explicitly suggested that American companies should stop buying overseas from this way.

For American buyers who have to use this trade term to trade, she makes the following advice:

LDP/DDP buyers should make a surprise visit to the importers who are responsible for customs clearance to confirm that this is a real existence company with a real operation of The Mobility Company rather than a virtual headspace company. It should also confirm that the latter understands all the details of the paction and find out the number of links in the whole LDP/ DDP purchase.

LDP/DDP buyers should contact the importer to check customs clearance documents to confirm that the information on the customs documents is consistent with their purchase documents.

Is there any significant difference between quantity and price?

LDP/DDP buyers should also try to find out about customs declarations: have they met with importers?

Who is directing the whole paction, importer or a freight forwarding company?

In response to the above talk about illegal customs clearance and the relatively low reported price behavior, Ms. La Da Da suggested that there will be a "major fraud case" exposure.

According to past experience, the two lawyers of Li Xinyu and merwynn pointed out that such signals often meant that the US Customs investigation of smuggling and tax evasion by some companies was coming to an end, and that the persons involved could face criminal charges by the US government.

The impact of US Customs Enforcement on LDP/DDP trading mode is worth careful observation by relevant Chinese apparel industry.