The Department of Commerce has issued, and is seeking public comment on, a proposed rule to establish a steel licensing and surge monitoring system as instructed by the President in his announcement of the safeguard remedies on certain steel products. Comments on the plan are due by August 19, 2002. A number of countries were exempted from the safeguard measures because of international commitments under bilateral free trade agreements, NAFTA and the WTO. However, in granting these exemptions, the President made clear that the exclusionary status would be revoked for developing countries, in full or part, if a surge in imports from that exempted country were to undermine the effectiveness of the safeguard measures. The President instructed USTR to review import data on a quarterly basis for signs of material increases in imports, which would then be the basis for immediate consultations and possible inclusion in the safeguard measure. The International Trade Administration at Commerce is proposing to establish an internet-based steel licensing and surge monitoring systems that will be comprised of three parts: 1. An online registration for steel importers; All imports listed in the President's section 201 relief determination, including those products subject to country exemptions or product exclusions, will be required to obtain a steel import license and provide the license number to US Customs on the entry summary. Steel Import Licensing System: The steel import licensing system includes both the online registration system for importers and the automatic steel import license issuance system. In order to obtain a steel import license, an importer or the importer's agent or customs broker, must first register with the Department of Commerce and be assigned a user identification number. There is no fee to register and a user identification number will be issued within two business days. Steel import licenses will be issued to registered importers, customs brokers or their agents through an automatic steel import licensing system. The separately issued user identification number discussed above will be required to access the system. The licenses will be issued automatically after the completion of the application form. Steel Import Surge Monitoring System: Commerce will create a stand-alone steel import surge monitoring website that will report certain aggregate information on imports of section 201 product categories obtained from the steel licenses. Aggregate information will be reported on a monthly basis by country of origin and section 201 product category and will include import quantity (metric tons), import Customs value (US dollars) and average unit value (dollars per metric ton). The monitoring system will also present a range of historical data for comparison purposes. Interim Monitoring: The Census added a special section 201 monitoring report to its monthly early release of steel import data. This special section includes two summary reports that provide preliminary section 201 import figures for each of the section 201 product categories as well as figures for each of the top 20 excluded countries. Full reports covering imports of steel products subject to section 201 remedies are also made available by Census. These two full reports, one sorted by country of origin, the other by section 201 product category provide aggregate import information for all countries starting with the early release of April import data on May 29, 2002. All information is posted on the Census' website at www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/steelindex.
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