R -- Subscription to Port Import/Export Report Services

On behalf of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the Office of the Secretary of Transporation, Acquisition Services Division, intends to award a contract to the Journal of Commerce on a non-competitive basis. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics believes that the Journal of Commerce Port Import Export Reporting Service (PIERS) has the unique capability to provide particular research services with representatives in the field collecting and encoding ships manifests from Customs Houses in every US port. Other trade data sources either rely on the reprocessing of the Census forms, which does not contain information on the shipper, carrier or containers, or are based on the Customs Services Automated Broker Interface which only captures information on Imports. The Journal of Commerce has an established netwrok of data collection, processing and distribution that make it the only qualified vendor of this type of import export data. This is not a request for proposal. Comments on this notification may be e-mailed as indicated below.MODIFICATION: This contract will include four option years.