A Bureau of Industry and Security official broke the news during the CBP trade symposium this week.
The Bureau of Industry and Security on Monday issued its first decision on exclusion requests filed in a new online exclusion request portal, Erika Maynard, special projects manager for the BIS Office of Technology Evaluation, told CBP trade symposium attendees in Chicago Tuesday.
Maynard said BIS established the Section 232 portal because it needed a solution to handle the large volume of exclusion requests.
She said the agency invited about 30 industry members to its headquarters to test the portal before it was launched. The portal allows users to register and view exclusions in one place and uses web-based tools instead of Excel reports.
The portal launched on June 13 to streamline the exclusions process while enhancing data integrity and quality controls.
Maynard said there are now about 400 registered portal users.
So far, BIS has reviewed about 57,000 Section 232 exclusion requests, with 41,000 of those approved.