For those of you unable to attend Update, be sure to see Export Control Blog for a summary of today’s plenary and breakout sessions (I contributed to some of the summaries since the breakout sessions were running concurrently and Scott Gearrity could only be in one place at a time).
Some of the biggest news items to come out of Update include:
--The comment period on the proposed China “catch-all” regulation will be extended until December 4, 2006. In case you haven't seen it yet, BIS has posted on its website answers to the most frequently asked questions on the China proposed rule that were asked in the public meetings that BIS held around the country.
--BIS has finally unveiled the new and improved version of the SNAP electronic electronic and classification system, known as SNAP-R (Redesigned Simplified Network Application Process). SNAP-R is up and running and existing SNAP users are now able to migrate their accounts to SNAP-R. Long-suffering users of the current version of SNAP will be very pleased by the enhancements. The following is a summary of the new features in SNAP-R: - The most significant improvement in SNAP-R is the ability for the applicant to attach PDF versions of supporting documents (technical specifications, letters of explanations, etc.) to export license applications and commodity classification requests. This should speed up processing times since the licensing officers will have direct access to the supporting documents submitted by the exporter. The system can accept PDF files up to 10MB in size. Supporting documents uploaded to SNAP-R can be copied and re-used on other applications.
- Another major improvement in SNAP-R is the ability to include up to 80 items on an export license application. This is a major improvement over the old version of SNAP that limited export license applications to six items per application. However, commodity classifications will still be limited to six items per request.
- SNAP-R will permit BIS licensing officers to communicate with applicants by e-mail.
- The system offers the capability to share work items with other users in the same company.
Labels: BIS, Export Controls
