US Customs looks to cut out doubling up

However, assistant US Customs attache Peter Darvas said it will try to make the task easier by researching ways to make its systems more compatible with those used in other countries.

Most exporters have to provide detailed information about exports to the US to both their national Customs agencies and US Customs, using two different systems.

Darvas said that while it would be convenient, it wouldn’t be as simple as just passing information between the two agencies. Mr Darvas said that the data formats that US Customs uses are incompatible with most countries’ Customs services, and there are issue surrounding US Customs being allowed to gain access to other countries Customs services. “We are not doing it directly because of interests of sovereignty and privacy, but we are looking at being able to convert the information so exporters could provide the same information to both services, ” he said.