Korea and U.S. conclude CSI

On January 17, Lee Young Sun, director at Office of Customs Administration, signed the CSI (Container Security Initiative) with Douglas Browning, the vice-director at the Office of Customs Administration in the U.S., to inspect potentially dangerous container cargoes in advance against marine terrorism.
The main thrust of the agreement is to inspect goods inside containers before departure from exporting ports for smuggling arms, explosives, and other cargoes destined for terrorist purposes.
The U.S. has tried since January last year to conclude the agreement with 14 countries having a total of 20 ports according to the proposal by the director at the Office of Customs Administration, and to date has signed with 10 countries including Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.
For this agreement, Korea and the U.S. decided to operate a preliminary inspection as a model for others through close information exchange and cooperation between Korean and U.S. customs for better inspections and detection.
The U.S. plans to send inspectors to the Port of Pusan, while Korea will send inspectors to the Port of Long Beach in L.A.
The CSI allows for non-inspection of transit cargoes.
In the case of goods chosen for inspection at the Port of Pusan, Korean regulations have priority over U.S. regulations when Korean inspectors detect an infraction of the rules.