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GTRI suggests duty cuts withdrawal on gold jewellery under India-UAE FTA

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NEW DELHI : With the government seeking a review of certain provisions of a free trade agreement with UAE, think tank GTRI on Friday asked for the withdrawal of duty cut concessions on platinum, silver, diamonds, gold jewellery, and tweak the rules of origin norms in the pact.

India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), officially dubbed as Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) on February 18, 2022, and implemented on May 1, 2022.

The Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) has earlier stated that the pact contains provisions for unlimited imports of duty-free gold, silver, platinum, and diamonds into India over the next few years and it would hurt domestic industry.

It has also alleged that there is a potential misuse of the rules of origin in the agreement and due to that India should review the CEPA. Meeting these rules are must to get duty concessions under the agreement.

In the review, it said India should focus on issues such as “withdrawing tariff cuts on platinum, silver, diamonds, and gold jewellery; adjusting value addition rules to exclude profit margins from the value addition calculations in the rules of origin; and banning the conversion of expensive products (silver bars) to cheaper ones (silver granules) to exploit CEPA benefits,” the GTRI said. It also asked the government to stop imports of sanctioned metals from Russia via Dubai and revoke special privileges to the Gift City bullion exchange due to misuse.

It added that the main goal of the review should be a reduction of large bullion imports and tightening the rules of origin to prevent misuse of bullion imports from Dubai.

“In FY24, 119.35 tonne of gold bars were imported valued at USD 7.62 billion. Silver imports from the UAE increased dramatically by 5853 per cent, from USD 29.2 million in FY23 to USD 1.74 billion in FY24,” the report said adding the import of gold jewellery from the UAE has increased by 290 per cent from USD 347 million in 2022-23 to USD 1.35 billion in FY24.

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