WASHINGTON -- Customs and Border Protection intends to implement rules requiring importers to provide additional data to identify high-risk shipments by the end of summer, 2007, but the agency plans to phase in the "10+2" requirements to minimize their compliance burden, Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said Wednesday.

"With these new reporting requirements, I want to be sure that all the issue that impact your business are resolved before we go to full compliance," Basham told an audience of some 700 importers, carriers and intermediaries at the Seventh Customs Trade Symposium.

Basham told reporters after his keynote address that Customs is not going to implement all the data requirements at once. The Trade Support Network met for three days before the symposium, he said, and defining the data elements has been a major focus of discussion.

Members of the trade who attended the meeting said that providing data on foreign manufacturers will likely cause a greater burden on small- and mid-size importers. Basham and Michael Mullen, assistant commissioner for international affairs and trade relations, said that the phased implementation is meant to minimize the effect of providing the so-called 10+2 data.

"We are working with companies to resolve problems," Mullen said. He said that the agency decided to proceed with rule-making after the data elements had been discussion points because "we're dealing with real problems, not what-ifs."

Basham asked the symposium for its input to refine the definitions.

"The purpose of 10+2 is security. They are not going to be used for compliance purposes," Basham told reporters. He said skeptics in the trade may not believe that data would spill over to trade enforcement. "The only way to appease our skeptics is performance."