Rosengarden to step down from ITC, ITDS
Gene Rosengarden, director of the Office of Tariff Affairs and Trade Agreements at the U.S. International Trade Commission and chairman of the government-wide International Trade Data System, will retire in January after 37 years of service, the ITC said.
Rosengarden's office is responsible for publishing tariff schedules for imports and he has played a key role in trade negotiations and setting government policies related to tariffs. He also led the U.S. contribution to the development of the Harmonized Code, the international standard for classifying imported goods for the purpose of assigning rates of duty, quotas, restrictions and other special criteria and for generating trade statistics. Rosengarden also helped create the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.
Rosengarden has spent 32 years at the ITC after five years with the U.S. Customs Bureau, as Customs and Border Protection was then known. He has headed the Office of Tariff Affairs and Trade Agreements since 1979.
ITDS is a program to eliminate redundant filing of commercial data to separate agencies by allowing companies to electronically transmit required information one time through a common portal that automatically distributes it to relevant agencies. The system is being designed to piggyback on the capabilities of the modernized Customs trade data system (Automated Commercial Environment, or ACE) under development. Many government agencies involved in regulating different aspects of international trade have been slow to gear up for integrating ITDS with their existing systems, potentially hindering the system's ultimate effectiveness.
The ITC is one of a handful of agencies that has committed to implement ITDS as soon as possible.
'Gene has been a visionary and leader to ITDS. His advocacy, leadership and commitment to ITDS's mission and goals have been the driving force in getting the many agencies on board in preparation for ACE/ITDS Release 5. He will be missed as the Chairman of the ITDS Board of Directors,' Sandra Scott, director of international relations at Yellow Roadway Corp., and co-chairman of the ITDS Committee at the Trade Support Network, an industry advisory group on ACE, said in an e-mail response to the news.