• To : Automated Broker Interface, ACE Portal Accounts
Subject: Costa Rica Joins CAFTA-DR
A Presidential Proclamation posted on the White House website on December 23, 2008 
implements the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) for goods of Costa Rica entered, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after January 1, 2009.  Additionally, the Proclamation removes Costa Rica as a beneficiary country under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) and the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA).  

This office issued implementation instructions for the CAFTA-DR on April 26, 2006, entitled “Amendments to the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement Implementation Instructions”.  Those instructions will apply for purposes of implementing the Agreement for goods of Costa Rica and can be found on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website at the following URL:

http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/trade/trade_programs/international_agreements/free_trade/dominican_republic/us_dominican.ctt/us_dominican.doc


The programming updates to the Automated Commercial System (ACS) allowing for automated processing have not yet been completed.  Therefore, until further notice, importers claiming Costa Rica preference under the CAFTA-DR should file manual entries or file ABI entries at release with manual entry summaries.

Please direct any questions to Mr. Seth Mazze, International Coordination Branch ([email protected]).