EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ, August 10, 2010 — Management Dynamics, a leading provider of Global Trade Management solutions, today announced the release of Trade Planner 3.0, a scenario-based planning tool that helps supply chain teams quickly and accurately evaluate alternative sourcing and distribution strategies to optimize total landed cost while assessing the impact of trade regulations.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, companies import nearly $2 trillion worth of products annually from over 150 countries, a number that is expected to triple by 2015. With the increasing pressure to cut costs, accommodate new trade regulations, and take advantage of new preferential trade agreements, businesses need planning tools to improve the design of their global supply chains.

“Companies today are moving beyond sourcing decisions based on the lowest product invoice and are evaluating multiple dimensions including transportation costs, duties and taxes, regulatory compliance, and other country risk factors,” said Janet Suleski, Research Director, Gartner.  “Scenario-based planning solutions provide key players across sourcing, logistics and compliance with the ability to make faster, more accurate sourcing and distribution decisions.”

With Management Dynamics’ Trade Planner solution, users can quickly and easily compare the costs of sourcing and distributing one or multiple products from multiple locations to identify the optimal decision.  Trade Planner allows users to import product descriptions, classify products and store classifications by country in a product repository.  Trade Planner is fully integrated with Management Dynamics’ Global Trade Content and supports classification by the Harmonized Schedules and Export Control Numbers for over 122 countries, and identifies all applicable embargoes, prohibitions, license requirements, and other product specific barriers to importing and exporting.

“Businesses are increasingly global in scope and need new planning tools to continually monitor total landed cost, model the cost reduction opportunities of shifting a supply base, evaluate new preferential trade agreements and assess the impact of new trade regulations,” said Nathan Pieri, SVP Marketing & Product Management, Management Dynamics, Inc.  “Today, some of the world’s largest companies in retail, food service, electronics, and apparel, are utilizing Trade Planner 3.0 across the enterprise to collaborate and make better sourcing and distribution strategies by considering both cost and associated risks.”

Trade Planner 3.0 is an on-demand application that can be quickly and cost-effectively deployed – typically in a few days.

For Additional information:
Make better-informed sourcing and distribution decisions. Maintain import and export compliance with on-demand access to the most comprehensive source of global trade content in the industry. Learn more at Trade Planner.

About Management Dynamics, Inc.
Management Dynamics is a leading provider of global trade management solutions that improve the performance of global supply chains for importers, exporters, logistics service providers, and carriers. The company’s solutions synchronize the flow of information among trading partners, optimize supply chain execution decisions, and streamline import and export processes to ensure trade compliance and minimize cost and risk involved in cross-border transactions. Management Dynamics’ time-proven solutions are used by more than 14,000 global users at some of the world’s most successful 3PLs, carriers, manufacturers, retailers, and high technology companies.

Sponsored by Management Dynamics (in partnership with BPE), the webinar will take place on July 28th at 2 pm ET.

The hour-long round table discussion will include the following expert panelists:

• Beth Peterson, President of BPE
• Joe Burks, Director of Trade Compliance for Cooper Industries
• Nathan Pieri, VP of Product Development and Marketing for Management Dynamics

These experts will discuss best practices for developing your company’s Export Management and Compliance Programs (EMCPs), including:

• Strategic value of your EMCP
• The core elements of an effective EMCP
• The steps required to build an EMCP
• Sharing your strategy with your C-level superiors

Learn how your company can implement processes and systems that ensure compliance with the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Best of all – it’s FREE!

Sign up today for: Building an Export Management and Compliance Program

Just after Taiwan has signed a landmark free trade agreement with China, David Shear, the State Department pointman on China-Taiwan ties, said the “The United States has no plans to begin talks with Taiwan about an FTA at this time.”

The US and Taiwan were previously negotiating a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement in 2007.

According to the AFP, Taiwan and other Asian countries have been hesitant to implement trade agreements with the US due to various agricultural trade disputes, including beef, pork, and poultry.

The countries imposed restrictions in late 2003 after mad cow disease was detected in an American herd. Some scientists believe humans can contract the brain-wasting illness by eating infected animals’ brains and spinal cords.

Taiwan agreed with the United States in October to let in more beef products but the island’s parliament reimposed restrictions three months later after a public outcry.

Read the complete article at Google News: AFP: US rules out Taiwan free trade deal

Receive free trade agreement, import, and export news: GTM Newsletter

More Help for Haiti: New Trade Benefits Extended in Haiti Economic Lift Program Act of 2010

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010; at 1:00PM – 2:30PM EST

The President on Monday, May 24, 2010 signed the Haiti Economic Lift Program (HELP) Act (H.R. 5160), which expands duty-free access to the U.S. market for Haitian textile and apparel products and extends existing trade preference programs for Haiti.Please join us for a complimentary webinar to learn how to do more business in Haiti. Our presentation includes precise details of these expanded benefits, including: NEW apparel products covered INCREASED Tariff Preference Levels for Knit and Woven apparel made from 3rd country inputs. EXTENDED duration of Preference Programs for Haiti MODIFIED earned import allowance ratio for knit and woven apparel, NEW duty free treatment for made-up textile products wholly assembled or knit to shape in Haiti. The one hour webinar will be presented by Tom Travis and Elise Shibles. Mr. Travis is managing partner of Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A. His practice concentrates on international trade and customs issues for apparel importers and retailers. He has assisted apparel operators in Haiti for over 30 years. He is also the author of the Amazon.com bestseller Doing Business Anywhere: The Essential Guide to Going Global. Ms. Shibles served for over 11 years with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As a specialist in textile and apparel policy, she participated in the negotiation of numerous free trade agreements, helped develop legislation and regulations to implement FTAs and preference programs, and trained foreign industry and government representatives on rules of origin and customs compliance.

COST: FREE
Register Online

Companies that do implement trade agreements find that implementing additional agreements adds exponential savings to their sourcing costs.

Here’s a brief (10 minute) video on managing multiple free trade agreements.

Special thanks to SupplyChainBrain.com.

Take the 2010 NAFTA Benchmarking Survey

If you do not manage trade agreements at your company, feel free to share the link with your colleagues.

Jim McNerney, Chief Executive of Boeing, noted that the US economy is still “fragile” and said “We need to borrow less, save more, become more efficient and competitive and bring our exports back in line with our imports. Opening up and expanding new markets is paramount,” in his speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The Financial Times states:

As chairman of President Barack Obama’s export council, Mr McNerney has been tasked with leading industry’s side of a campaign to double US exports within five years – an effort that the White House projects will create two million US jobs. Boeing is the world’s second-largest aircraft-maker and one of the US’s biggest exporting companies.

McNerney also added, “The Obama administration, in my view, is not moving fast enough. I would encourage them to move faster on … free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama.”

Although the US signed trade agreements with South Colombia, South Korea, and Panama in 2006 and 2007, Congress has failed to approve the agreements. Companies are looking to President Obama to get the ball rolling again to pass these agreements into effect.

Specifically, McNerney believes Korea and Colombia to be new markets where European corporations (Ahem, Airbus perhaps?) were able to export under a lower-tariff regime than US Companies.

Read more at: “Boeing urges faster action on trade deals” in the Financial Times.

Many firms walk away from these duty savings due to the difficulty of learning origin rules or due to the time-frame involved in accurately qualifying a product for reduced duties – even when the benefits are significant.

Please participate in a survey on how companies manage NAFTA qualification! With the results, we hope to advance industry knowledge of best practices and better understand overall use of NAFTA processes across a wide spectrum of organizations.

Take the 2010 NAFTA Benchmarking Survey

This is a brief survey and should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Your answers are kept strictly confidential and will be reported anonymously.

Customs & Trade Solutions, Inc. and Management Dynamics are working to identify best practices when dealing with the complexities of NAFTA. Our goal is to identify best practices, and pass those along to you so that your company may benefit from improved processes and procedures.

The results will be used to prepare a report which Management Dynamics and CTSI Advisors will distribute during the AAEI Annual Conference, June 6-8. If you plan to attend the AAEI Conference, please stop by our booth for a copy of the results. Otherwise, we will email you a copy when it’s ready.

Take the 2010 NAFTA Benchmarking Survey

The survey will close on June 2nd, so please be sure to participate early.

Please refer to your own company’s policy on whether this would be considered a work-related activity, and be sensitive to what data about the company can be provided.

Conference sessions will include:

• Trade Compliance Implications of Simplified EU Law
• Confronted with an Audit: The Do’s and Don’ts
• Customs Classification –The Latest Developments in EU Law
• The Impact of the AEO Legislation: Lessons Learned from the Pilot Project & Implementations in Other Member States
• Compliance with EU Sanctions
• Export Control Fundamentals for Trade Compliance Managers
• Introduction to Customs Valuation and Transfer Pricing
• VAT Implications of Transfer Pricing & Customs Adjustments
• Centralized Clearing
• Rules of Origin
• IT Challenges in Effective Export Control Compliance
• Conducting Effective Internal Audits: Best Practices
• Tariff Engineering: Developments, Issues & Opportunities
• Risk Determination for Export Compliance
• EU Trade Compliance Share Forum: Overview & Proceedings

For more information on the conference, or to register, please visit http://icpainc.org/conferences/eu/.