Gold imports set to resume after two months’ halt

With the commerce and finance ministry officials agreeing to remove all the procedural hurdles for providing gold to the exporters, imports are set to resume soon. At five tons of gold which is lying with the customs due to procedural hurdles could also be released after the concerned officials receive orders which are being issued to them very soon.
Gold imports were virtually on hold for almost 2 months when the RBI first issued norms mandating 20% of the imported gold to be supplied to the exporters. In last two months bearly 10-15 tons have arrived in the country through official route.
In a meeting in Delhi today which was attended by the senior officials of ministry of finance, commerce, CBEC and DGFT along with all gold importing banks, the decision was taken that customs officials across the country will be issued orders soon to release gold to the exporters based on one time certificate holders.
Pankaj Parekh, vice chairman, Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) who was present in the meeting that, “Now exporters should get the gold they want as all the issued have been sorted out. Even after this if any exporters have any issue, government has appointed 4 nodal officers to sort out their problems immediately.” However, in first 6 months of the financial year so far, around 400 tons of gold has been imported and with the rule to compulsorily supply 20% of the imported gold to exporters, in next six month total net gold import could be maximum 200-250 tons according to most optimistic industry estimates.
The gold imports policy saw several ammendments in 2 months from the RBI and customs department and now exporters who had faced cancellation of orders for want of gold hope they will get the gold.This will also solve issue of scarcity of gold in domestic market as till exporters procedural hurdles were not cleared banks were not able to import god for domestic market also.
Banks and other importers had halted imports as there was no clarity on how the rule would be implemented. The resulting impasse over imports crimped supply and pushed up domestic prices by higher premiums for physical delivery.
Source: Business-Standard
Source:Bullion Bulletin

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