Revisions to the Entity List

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 744</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241217-0329]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0694-AJ99</RIN> <SUBJECT>Revisions to the Entity List</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this rule, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding 13 entities under 13 entries to the Entity List. These entries are listed on the Entity List under the destinations of Burma (1), China, People's Republic of (China) (11), and Pakistan (1). These entities have been determined by the U.S. Government to be acting contrary to the national security and/or foreign policy interests of the United States. This rule also amends the EAR by making certain editorial corrections and clarifications. BIS is making the corrections and clarifications in order to minimize confusion and not impede the free flow of commerce. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective January 6, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Chair, End-User Review Committee, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Export Administration, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, Phone: (202) 482-5991, Email: <E T="03">ERC@bis.doc.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Entity List (supplement no. 4 to part 744 of the EAR (15 CFR parts 730-774)) identifies entities for which there is reasonable cause to believe, based on specific and articulable facts, have been involved, are involved, or pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to § 744.11(b) of the EAR. The EAR impose additional license requirements on and limit the availability of most license exceptions for exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) when a listed entity is a party to the transaction. The license review policy for each listed entity is identified in the “License Review Policy” column on the Entity List, and the impact on the availability of license exceptions is described in the relevant <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document that added the entity to the Entity List. BIS places entities on the Entity List pursuant to parts 744 (Control Policy: End-User and End-Use Based) and 746 (Embargoes and Other Special Controls) of the EAR. The End-User Review Committee (ERC), composed of representatives of the Departments of Commerce (Chair), State, Defense, Energy and, where appropriate, the Treasury, makes all decisions regarding additions to, removals from, or other modifications to the Entity List. The ERC makes all decisions to add an entry to the Entity List by majority vote and makes all decisions to remove or modify an entry by unanimous vote. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Additions to the Entity List</HD> The ERC determined to add Telecom International Myanmar Company Limited, under the destination of Burma, to the Entity List. This addition is based on actions and activities that are contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States under § 744.11 of the EAR. Specifically, this entity is being added for providing surveillance services and financial support to Burma's military regime, enabling the regime to carry out human rights abuses through the tracking and identification of target individuals and groups. A license is required for the export, reexport and transfer (in-country) of all items subject to the EAR to this entity and license applications will be reviewed under a presumption of denial. The ERC has determined to add Chengdu RML Technology Co., Ltd.; Chengdu Yaguang Electronics Co., Ltd.; Hefei Starwave Communication Technology Co., Ltd.; and Yaguang Technology Group Co., Ltd., all under the destination of China, to the Entity List. These entities are added for acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of China's military modernization. Specifically, Chengdu RML Technology Co., Ltd. has supplied the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with precision-guided missiles and satellite communication systems. Chengdu Yaguang Electronics Co., Ltd. and its parent company, Yaguang Technology Group Co., Ltd., have supplied the PLA and multiple Chinese parties on the Entity List with dual-use electronic components. Lastly, Hefei Starwave Communication Technology Co., Ltd. has supplied radio frequency/microwave products explicitly for military equipment application to the PLA and Chinese parties on the Entity List. These activities are contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States under § 744.11 of the EAR. These entities are added with a license requirement for the export, reexport and transfer (in-country) of all items subject to the EAR and a license review policy of a presumption of denial. The ERC determined to add the following seven entities, all under the destination of China, to the Entity List: Chinese Academy of Sciences Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics; Ji Hua Laboratory; Nanjing Simite Optical Instruments Co., Ltd.; Peng Cheng Laboratory; Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics; Suzhou Ultranano Precision Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.; and Wuhu Kewei Zhaofu Electronics Co., Ltd. These entities are being added for acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of China's military modernization. In addition, these entities have demonstrable ties to activities of concern, including hypersonic weapons development, design and modeling of vehicles in hypersonic flight, using proprietary software to model weapons design and damage; and otherwise supporting China's military-civil fusion efforts. These activities are contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States under §  744.11 of the EAR. These entities are added with a license requirement for the export, reexport, and transfer (in-country) of all items subject to the EAR and a license review policy of presumption of denial. Finally, the ERC determined to add Emerging Future Solutions Private Limited, under the destination of Pakistan, to the Entity List. This addition is made as a result of the entity's contributions to Pakistan's ballistic missile program. This activity is contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests under § 744.11 of the EAR. This entity is added with a license requirement for the export, reexport and transfer (in-country) of all items subject to the EAR and a license application review policy of a presumption of denial. For the reasons described above, this final rule adds the following 13 entities under 13 entries to the Entity List and includes, where appropriate, aliases: <HD SOURCE="HD3">Burma</HD> • Telecom International Myanmar Company Limited <HD SOURCE="HD3">China</HD> • Chengdu RML Technology Co., Ltd., • Chengdu Yaguang Electronics Co., Ltd., • Chinese Academy of Sciences Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics, • Hefei Starwave Communication Technology Co., Ltd., • Ji Hua Laboratory, • Nanjing Simite Optical Instruments Co., Ltd., • Peng Cheng Laboratory, • Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, • Suzhou Ultranano Precision Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd., • Wuhu Kewei Zhaofu Electronics Co., Ltd., <E T="03">and</E> • Yaguang Technology Group Co., Ltd. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Pakistan</HD> • Emerging Future Solutions Private Limited. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Corrections to the Entity List</HD> This final rule also corrects one spelling error and two punctuation errors in the addresses listed for the entry of Shenzhen Guowei Sensing Technology Co., Ltd. This entity was originally added to the Entity List on December 2, 2024, in a final rule published on December 5, 2024 (89 FR 96830). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Savings Clause</HD> For the changes being made in this final rule, shipments of items removed from eligibility for a License Exception or export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) without a license (NLR) as a result of this regulatory action that were en route aboard a carrier to a port of export, reexport, or transfer (in-country), on January 6, 2025, pursuant to actual orders for export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) to or within a foreign destination, may proceed to that destination under the previous eligibility for a License Exception or export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) without a license (NLR) before February 5, 2025. Any such items not actually exported, reexported, or transferred (in-country) before midnight, on February 5, 2025, require a license in accordance with this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Export Control Reform Act of 2018</HD> On August 13, 2018, the President signed into law the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, which included the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (ECRA) (50 U.S.C. 4801-4852). ECRA provides the legal basis for BIS's principal authorities and serves as the authority under which BIS issues this rule. In particular, section 1753 of ECRA (50 U.S.C. 4812) authorizes the regulation of exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) of items subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Further, section 1754(a)(1)-(16) of ECRA (50 U.S.C. 4813(a)(1)-(16)) authorizes, inter alia, establishing and maintaining a list of foreign persons and end uses that are determined to be a threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States pursuant to the policy set forth in section 1752(2)(A), and restricting exports, reexports, and in-country transfers of any controlled items to any foreign per ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━