Supporting Statement 07

Supporting Statement

African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Textile Certificate of Origin

1651-0082

A. Justification

1. The collection of information is required to implement the duty preference provisions of The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The provisions of AGOA were adopted by the U.S. with the enactment of the Trade and Development Act of 2000 (PL.106-200). The objectives of AGOA are (1) to provide for extension of duty-free treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) to not-import sensitive articles normally excluded from GSP duty treatment, and (2) to provide for the entry of specific textile and apparel articles free of duty and free of any quantitative limits to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The collection of this information is provided for in 19 CFR 10.214, 10.215, and 10.216.

2. For preferential treatment under AGOA, for textiles and apparel articles, the sub-Saharan African exporter will be required to prepare a certification of origin and provide it to the importer. The importers are required to have the certification in their possession at the time of the claim, and to provide it to Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) upon request as stated in 19 CFR Part 163. To substantiate the claim it is sometimes necessary to obtain additional information from the exporter. The CBP officer will review the information for sufficiency to allow the importer’s claim. If the information is not sufficient to substantiate the claim in addition to a Request for Information, on-site verifications of the exporter or producer in the sub-Saharan African country may be initiated.

3. The documents related to this information collection are submitted only upon CBP’s request. CBP requests these documents on approximately one percent of the relevant transactions. As a result, it is more of a record keeping requirement, than a reporting requirement. Also, there is no official form for this information collection.

4. This information is not collected in any other form and, therefore, is not duplicated elsewhere.

5. This collection of information does not significantly impact small businesses or entities.

6. If this information was not collected, CBP would not be able to ensure that duty-free or reduced-duty treatment is provided on imported goods under the Act and specifies the documentary and other procedural requirements which apply to any claim for such preferential tariff treatment under the Act.

7. This information collection is conducted in a manner consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.6.

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8. Public comments were solicited through two Federal Register notices published on February 20, 2007 and on April 20, 2007. As of this submission, no comments have been received.

9. There is no offer of a monetary or material value for this information collection.

10. This information collection does not involve questions of a commercially sensitive nature.

11. There are no questions of a personal and sensitive nature.

12 Estimated Annualized Burden on the Public: The estimated burden for this information collection is 10,400. Approximately 440 respondents participate in this Program. These respondents prepare the following documentation:

SUBMISSION	NUMBER OF RESPONSES	AVERAGE RESPONSE	TOTAL HOURS
Written declaration that good qualifies as an originating good	30,000	.33386	10,016
Declaration filed in connection with entry of goods returned from sub-Saharan African country after being exported for repairs or alterations	350	.33386	117
Written statement accompanying each Corrected declaration or notice of incorrect certification	300	.33386	100
Submission of Certification by importer	500	.33386	167
TOTAL BURDEN HOURS FOR THESE SUBMISSIONS			10,400

Estimated Annualized Cost to the Public. The estimated cost to the public is $239,269.00, based on an estimated 10,400 burden hours at an estimated hourly rate of $23.00 per hour.

13. Estimated Record Keeping Burden on the Public. There is no record keeping burden associated with this collection.

Estimated Capitalization Cost Burden on the Public. There is no capitalization cost associated with this information collection.

14. Estimated Cost to the Federal Government associated with the reviewing and processing the information is $ 600,000. This is based on an estimated 20,000 hours expended at an average hourly rate of $30.00.

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15. There are no changes to this information collection.

16. This information will not be published for statistical purposes.

17. There is no form involved with this information collection.

18. No statistical methods were employed.