IS PUERTO RICO PART OF THE UNITED STATES?

QUERY

LC requires the country of origin to be indicated on documents as USA/Singapore, whereas presented documents show the country of origin as USA and Puerto Rico.
Is it accepatble?

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ANSWER

Hi,

Interesting question, indeed!

It seems to be a discrepancy at first sight. But, in fact, it is acceptable, at least in my own opinion.

As document checkers may know, Puerto Rico is addmited as part of the USA (see here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico#Within_the_United_States ), hence, documents showing the country of origin as USA and Puerto Rico are complying with the L/C terms.

Notwithstanding that this view may be controversial, it should be acceptable.

Yours is similar to a case (in T.O Lee’s CDCS exercises) where the L/C requires the port of loading as China whereas the bill of lading presented indicates the port of loading as Hong Kong. The bill of lading is deemed to be complying as the fact that Hong Kong is a part of China after July, 2007 is undisputable.

Best regards,
Mr. Old Man