A sudden spurt in duty-free imports of gold jewellery from Indonesia under the India-ASEAN free trade agreement was a key reason for the Indian government’s decision to ban shipments of certain gold jewellery products.
The Centre suspects that gold is being re-routed into India from other countries without payment of any duty under the FTA as Indonesia was never known for exporting gold jewellery to India.
The government on Wednesday imposed restrictions on imports of certain gold jewellery and articles. In a notification, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade amended the import policy for unstudded jewellery made of gold and other gold articles to ‘restricted’ from ‘free’.
However, it said import under the India-UAE CEPA would be allowed without any license.