Glossary of Customs and Trade Terms

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Word/Acronym	Meaning
AAPA	American Association of Port Authorities
Accession	The process of adhering to a legal instrument. In the case of GATT, the prospective Contracting Party enters into accession negotiations with the Contracting Parties to determine the concessions (trade liberalization) or other specific obligations it must undertake before accession is concluded.
ACS	Australian Customs Service
Ad valorem duties & taxes	Latin, ‘according to the value.’ Duties and taxes that are calculated on the basis of value.
Administrative settlement	The procedure laid down by national legislation under which the Customs are empowered to settle a Customs offence either by ruling thereon or by means of a compromise settlement. (Annex H, Kyoto Convention)
Admiralty Court	A court having jurisdiction over maritime questions pertaining to ocean transport, including contracts, charters, collisions, and cargo damages.
AFTA	ASEAN Free Trade Area
Agent	A person authorized to transact business for and in the name of another person or company. Types of agent include brokers,(2) commission merchants, resident buyers, sales agents, manufacturer's representatives.
Air Freight Forwarder	A type of freight forwarder who specializes in air cargo. He usually consolidates the air shipments of various exporters, charging them for actual weight and deriving his profit by paying the airline the lower consolidated rate. He issues his own air waybills to the exporters.
Air waybill	The forwarding agreement or carrying agreement between shipper and air carrier and is issued only in nonnegotiable form.
Airline	As provided in Article 96 of the Chicago Convention, any air transport enterprise offering or operating a scheduled international air service. (ICAO Annex 9)
Alerts	Targeted intervention of persons, goods and craft considered to pose a risk to border or revenue related issues.
‘All Risk’ Insurance	A clause included in marine insurance policies to cover loss and damage from external causes, such as fire, collision, pilferage, etc. but not against innate flaws in the goods, such as decay, germination, nor against faulty packaging or loss market, nor against war, strikes, riots, and civil commotion.
Anti-dumping duty	Duty imposed to offset the amount or margin of dumping.
ANZCERTA	See CER
APEC	Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. A forum established as a vehicle for multilateral cooperation among the market-oriented economies of the region to better manage their growing interdependence and sustain economic growth. Begun in 1989 as an informal grouping of 12 Asia-Pacific economies (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the United States), APEC admitted the People's Republic of China, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong in November 1991, Mexico and Papua/New Guinea in November 1993, Peru, Russia and Vietnam in 1998.
API	Advance Passenger Information
Apron	The area immediately in front of or behind a wharf shed on which cargo is lifted. On the ‘front apron,’ cargo is unloaded from or loaded onto a ship. Behind the shed, cargo moves over the ‘rear apron’ into and out of railroad cars.
Arrival notice	A notification by carrier of ship's arrival to the consignee, the ‘Notify Party,’ and - when applicable - the ‘Also Notify Party.’ These parties in interest are listed in blocks 3, 4 and 10, respectively, of the Bill of Lading.
ASEAN	Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Assignment	A term commonly used in connection with a bill of lading. It involves the transfer of rights, title and interest in order to assign goods by endorsing the bill of lading.
Assist	Something of value that the buyer of goods provides directly or indirectly, free or at a reduced cost, to the manufacturer or seller of the goods for use in the production of the goods. The value of the assist (or a percentage of) should be added to the transaction value when calculating value for customs purposes. Tools dies and moulds used to produce goods may be considered assists.
ASYCUDA	Automated System for Customs Data
ATA	An acronym of the French and English words ‘Admission Temporaire/Temporary Admission.’
ATA	Air Transport Association
ATA carnet	An international Customs document which, issued under the terms of the ATA Convention, and the Istanbul Convention incorporates an internationally valid guarantee and may be used, in lieu of national Customs documents and as security for import duties and taxes, to cover the temporary admission of goods and, where appropriate, the transit of goods. It may be accepted for controlling the temporary exportation and reimportation of goods but, in this case, the international guarantee does not apply.
AULD	Aircraft Unit Load Device – see ULD.
Avoirdupois weight	The weight system used in the USA.