The GJEPC has welcomed two important notifications from the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India respectively which will provide some much needed immediate relief to the export sector during the current situation arising out of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The first of these relates to an announcement made today by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry regarding “Relaxations provided on compliances to be met by units / developers / co‐developers of SEZs”, which has been issued in the context of the current “sudden outbreak of COVID‐19 pandemic and the nation‐wide lock‐down”.

It states that “The Department of Commerce has therefore decided to provide suitable relaxations on compliances to be met by units / developers / co‐developers of Special Economic Zones (SEZs)”.

Some of these relevant to the units in SEZs include

• Filing of Annual Performance Reports (APR) by SEZ units

• Extension of Letter of Approvals (LoA) which may expire, in the cases of:

• Developers/co‐developers who are in the process of developing and operationalising the SEZ;

• Units which are likely to complete their 5 year block for NFE assessment;

• Units which are yet to commence operations

The order further states that “Development Commissioners of SEZs have been directed to ensure that no hardship is caused to Developers / Co‐Developer / Units and no punitive action is taken in cases where any compliance is not met during this period impacted by the above disruption”.

It goes on to say that “Further, as may be possible, all extensions of LoAs and other compliances may be facilitated through electronic mode in a time‐bound manner. In the cases where it is not possible to grant extension through electronic mode or in cases where a physical meeting is required, Development Commissioners have been asked to ensure that the Developer / Co‐developer / Units do not face any hardship due to such expiry of validity during this period of disruption. Ad‐hoc interim extension / deferment of the expiry date may be granted without prejudice till 30.06.2020 or further instructions of the Department on the matter, whichever is earlier.”

The other important notification issued by the RBI today relates to exemption from caution listing under Export Data Processing Management System (EDPMS). It may be recalled that under EDPMS exporters would be “caution listed if any shipping bill against them remains open i.e. unrealised for more than two years in of RBI provided no extension is granted by AD Category – I bank / RBI”.

The latest notification from RBI has extended “exemption from caution listing under EDPMS for six months till 30th September 2020”.