Shippers want the United States Customs Service to give a Hong Kong service provider permission to offer its Automated Manifest Service (AMS) to speed up the local trouble-shooting process before the February deadline.
US Customs last month nominated the AMS system as the sole conduit through which shipping lines and major forwarders could electronically submit freight manifests for US-bound cargo.
But most Asian forwarders are technically incapable of accessing the system, forcing them to funnel confidential data through rival carriers' systems.
Ideally, smaller forwarders and shippers would like to submit the data direct to customs.
'We raised with US Customs in Bangkok last week the need to establish a local service provider to connect to the AMS system,' Hong Kong Shippers Council executive director Sonny Ho Lap-kee said. 'In principle they did not object to foreign companies providing such a service. They have already received a similar request from Le Havre [France].'
The 30-odd licensed AMS providers, mostly information technology and port management companies, designated by US Customs are all located in the US.