Govt restricts imports of some gold jewellery, articles

The government on Wednesday imposed restrictions on imports of certain gold jewellery and articles. In a notification, the directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT) amended the import policy for unstudded jewellery made of gold, and other articles made of gold to “restricted” from “free”.

Restrictions mean that a license will be required from the government to import these goods though no such permission is required for imports under the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) tariff rate quota.

“However, import under a valid India-UAE CEPA TRQ shall be permitted freely without any import license,” the DGFT said.

Industry sources said that the restrictions have been imposed in light of a rise in imports from Indonesia under the India-ASEAN free trade agreement wherein some articles of gold were coming duty free and being melted in India to make jewellery.

In April-May FY24, India imported $112.09 million of these products of which $76.28 million came from Indonesia.

Gold imports attract 15% duty.
Imports of pearls, precious and semi-precious stones dipped 25.36% to about $4 billion during April-May this fiscal. Gold imports contracted around 40% to $4.7 billion in the same period.