Commissioner of Customs & Border Protection, W. Ralph Basham, will make his first address to the New England international trade community on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at the 5th Annual Northeast Cargo Symposium at the Harvard Club in Boston, hosted by the Coalition of New England Companies for Trade (CONECT).

CONECT's Northeast Cargo Symposium has become New England's premiere fall gathering of logistics professionals, featuring leading authorities speaking on pressing cargo security, logistics, and customs issues. It offers importers, exporters, ocean carriers, ports, customs brokers, freight forwarders, and service providers a superb day of education, updating and networking. The registration and details for the Northeast Cargo Symposium can be found at www.conect.org .

This year's Cargo Symposium will feature, in addition to Commissioner Basham's Keynote address, two particularly timely panels. The first panel will address Import Compliance, and will feature Janet Labuda, CBP's Director of Textile Enforcement and Operations from CBP Headquarters in DC, along with a major US importer and a well known New England trade attorney, Barbara Dawley of Meeks & Sheppard. The panel will address the most vexing compliance challenges facing importers of apparel and other products subject to import restrictions, dumping orders, and enhanced CBP scrutiny.

The second panel will address C-TPAT (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) and Suply Chain Security. CBP's Director of C-TPAT, Larry Rosenzweig, also from CBP Headquarters in Washington DC, will be featured on a panel with George James, Manager of International Customs Compliance for Reebok International Ltd. James will speak on the means by which companies reduce trade disruption through an advanced C-TPAT program.

Always fast-paced and entertaining, CONECT Counsel Peter Friedmann will present 'The View from Washington -- If You're In International Trade, Here's What's Coming.'

The day concludes with a fabulous cocktail reception, the best logistics networking session this fall in New England.