As the world's second-largest consumer of precious metals, India, which is also the world's second-largest consumer of simple goldjewelry, now India restricts imports of plain gold jewelry. This restriction went into effect on Wednesday.
India Implements Import Restrictions On Plain Gold Jewelry
The importation of articles that have been gold-plated has been shifted from the free category to the restricted category in accordance with a notification issued by the government.
In addition, the notification noted that imports of gold-plated articles will be allowed under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between India and the United Arab Emirates without the requirement of a license being first obtained.
It took some time before the Ministry of Commerce and Industry got back to a request for comment that was addressed to them.
In the course of the last few months, importers have been taking advantage of a regulatory gap in order to acquire basic gold jewelry from Indonesia without having to pay any import duties. Because of this turn of events, a decision has been made to take some action.
A Mumbai-based dealer with a private bullion importing bank said:
“„Indonesia was never a gold jewelry supplier to India, but in the last few months, bullion dealers imported 3-4 tonnes from Indonesia without paying any import taxes.- Mumbai-based dealer
Gold imports into India are subject to a levy of 15 percent.
"Many dealers got to know about the loophole, and they were also trying to source from Indonesia. The policy change has closed that loophole," he said.
Reporting by Jose Joseph in Bengaluru, Shivangi Acharya in Delhi, and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai Both Arun Koyyur and Matthew Lewis contributed to the editing of the document.
According to NDTV, The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has announced, through a notification, that the import policy governing certain goods "has been amended from free to restricted with immediate effect"
Restrictions Imposed On Import Of Certain Gold Jewellery, Articles
In the first two months of the current fiscal year, total imports of pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, and other types of precious and semi-precious stones saw a fall of 25.36 percent, bringing the total to about 4 billion USD.
Imports of gold dropped by around 40 percent during the same time period, reaching a total of 4.7 billion dollars in the United States.
The overall value of items imported during April and May of this fiscal year fell by 10.24 percent to 107 billion USD. In comparison to the merchandise trade deficit of 40.48 billion dollars in April-May 2022, the deficit for April-May 2023 was 37.26 billion dollars.