The Much-Awaited UFLPA Region Alert Set On By the US CBP | Trademo Insights

The new Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Region Alert is all set to go effective from March 18, 2023. It will be deployed by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as an enhancement to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).

Note: The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act or UFLPA was implemented by the US CBP on June 21, 2022, with the aim of preventing imports produced or manufactured wholly, partially, or in any form in the Xinjiang region of the People’s Republic of China.

What changes?

The following three validations will be added to the ACE:

• Users will have to enter a postal code.
• An error message will appear if the provided code is not a valid Chinese postal code.
• A warning message will appear if the provided code belongs to the XUAR region.

It is noted that CBP has denied releasing any list of either valid Chinese postal codes or postal codes of the Xinjiang region.

The above validations will impact the following applications only:

• Cargo Release (SE) application – for manufacturer (MF) party and country reported as The People’s Republic of China in the SE36 and/or SE56 record.

• Manufacturer Identification Code ($I) application – during creating/updating a manufacturer identification code with a city in The People’s Republic of China.

What does it mean?

The new Region Alert will pre-notify the importers/buyers if the concerned goods were manufactured in the XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and henceforth may not be imported into the US.

Upon receiving the warning message, the user shall notify the importer about the likely subjection of the goods to the rebuttable presumption of forced labor under the UFLPA.

Further, the importers may request the CBP for an exception to the rebuttable presumption at any stage suitable.

The new UFLPA Region Alert is a stricter enforcement mechanism of the CBP on a wider range of goods regulated under the UFLPA accompanied by higher shipment seizures, detentions, and audits. As importing from China becomes increasingly difficult and riskier, you can prepare well ahead for all compliance and controls required with Trademo Compliance.