US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will make mandatory the following requirements which will affect your business. These mandates will DRAMATICALLY change the way commercial Customs clearance has historically been conducted at ALL Customs Ports of Entry into the United States.

Long-accepted transit and delivery time elements will be potentially affected in an adverse way. The overall intention of CBP is to acquire complete and detailed information about commercially imported cargo in ADVANCE of its physical arrival at the U.S. border.

ON OCTOBER 1, 2004, the following took effect:
A. ULTIMATE CONSIGNEE IRS# - As BCB has been advising you for the past 10 years, reporting the ultimate consignee IRS#, EIN# or SOCIAL SECURITY# on your Customs documents will be ENFORCED. If the numbers are not provided at the time of Release, CBP will DENY entry of your merchandise into the United States.

Informational Links:

B. 100% TARIFF CLASSIFICATION OF ALL GOODS AT THE TIME OF RELEASE - all multiple tariff classification of goods must be transmitted at the time of release. Your shipments will be DELAYED at the border if your Customs documents are not properly prepared. If your company ships more than 5 tariff items per shipment, please contact our Customer Service Department, at (716) 884-1554, for optimum handling to insure the timely release of your merchandise.

ON DECEMBER 17, 2004, the following took effect:

Advanced Electronic Persentation of Cargo Information
A. PRE-ARRIVAL PROCESSING SYSTEM (PAPS) - 100% participation will become MANDATORY. Contact your Carrier(s) and insure that they are PAPS approved.

PAPS - Ordering Labels from BCB:

B. LINE RELEASE CLIENTS (BRASS) - to continue utilizing your line release cards, each DRIVER must be registered under the Free and Secure Trade (FAST) program. Contact your carrier(s) to confirm that their drivers are registered on FAST. If the drivers are not registered on FAST, the PAPS system must be utilized to release your shipments. **The FAST driver requirement has been postponed until January 31, 2004.**

Informational Links

BCB International, Inc. is making adjustments to accommodate these extensive changes that will greatly affect our business in order to make the clearance of your shipments as smooth as possible.

If you should have any questions, BCB urges you to contact our Customer Service Department at (716) 884-1554.

Thank you.