NOAA Fisheries has announced that beginning April 7, 2018, all filings for seafood products covered by the Seafood Import Monitoring Program must comply with the electronic filing requirements in order for an entry to receive a “may proceed”. The Seafood Import Monitoring Program—also known as SIMP—established reporting and recordkeeping requirements for imports of certain seafood products to prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated and/or misrepresented seafood from entering U.S. commerce.
On January 1, 2018, mandatory compliance for SIMP (which requires the electronic filing of certain data at the time of entry and retention of chain of custody records for certain imported fisheries products) became effective. However, NOAA Fisheries adopted an “informed compliance” approach with its implementation of SIMP –working with Customs and Border Protection and filers to facilitate their full and timely compliance with SIMP without impeding the release and clearance of shipments for which the entry filer had incomplete information or was unable to successfully submit those data. Additional technical support services were also established to assist entry fliers with questions regarding their SIMP data filings. NOAA Fisheries has observed an encouraging and steadily increasing rate of compliance with SIMP filings, and is now announcing that its SIMP informed compliance approach will end on April 7, 2018.
What does this mean?
Beginning April 7, filings for products covered under SIMP (NMFS SIM (NM8) data), with no SIMP data, that are incomplete, or that contain erroneous SIM PGA data, must be corrected before they will be accepted. Filers are also reminded that SIMP includes a records retention provision, meaning that all entries subject to SIMP may be audited and became subject to enforcement action beginning January 1, 2018. Those engaged in the import, export or re-export of covered species must also comply with all other requirements of NOAA trade monitoring programs including the TTVP/NOAA 370, HMS ITP, and AMLR trade programs, as applicable.
Technical Support for SIMP Entry filers
NOAA Fisheries will continue to provide additional technical support and assistance to fliers beyond April 7 as long as these services are needed. For assistance regarding compliance and submissions with SIMP data that has been rejected and cannot be resolved by the filer, please contact SIMPsupport@noaa.gov or the SIMP Support Line at 301-427-8301.
Source: NOAA