The Ministry of Commerce & Industry organised a video meeting with GJEPC to discuss and understand the issues and need for facilitating B2C cross-border exports of gems and jewellery through e-commerce from India. The meeting was attended by Shri. Arun Goel, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce; Shri. Ajay Srivastava, Addl. DGFT; Smt. Rupa Dutta, Senior Economic Advisor Department of Commerce, Shri. Senthil Nathan S, Deputy Secretary, Department of Commerce, and Smt. Shruti Chandra, Invest India. GJEPC was represented by Chairman Shri. Colin Shah; Convener SEZ, Sub-Committee Shri. Suvankar Sen; Executive Director Shri. Sabyasachi Ray; and Deputy Director Shri. Nitin Khandelwal were part of the meeting.
GJEPC made an in-depth presentation highlighting the need for a separate cross-border e-commerce policy facilitating exports of gems and jewellery and an SOP to enhance ease of doing business, etc.
E-commerce has become the key means of doing business across the globe in the wake of the pandemic. Shri. Colin Shah, emphasised that cross-border e-commerce will soon be the new world order, and added, “In order to boost exports, we propose to promote and facilitate cross-border e-commerce by eliminating the hurdles through a fast-track rework on the policy, rules, guidelines and procedures, to encourage and equip our manufacturing exporters to compete with e-commerce sellers from across geographies.
The Council stressed upon the need for a system to fast-track Customs clearance of gems and jewellery valued below $800, which is being derived from the “de-minimis” threshold set by the US, under which no Customs duties or taxes are applied to goods being imported into the US.
Presently, the US Customs and Border Protection classifies shipments valued up to $800 as ‘Section 321 shipment type’ imported by one person on one day and allows duty-free release of such parcels.
Shah noted that to facilitate the ease of doing e-commerce business, it would be imperative to have a dedicated fast-track Customs clearance counter/desk; extension of EDI-ICEGATE at SEZ and FPO; faceless Customs clearance; RMS-based monitoring; EDI-e-commerce & EDPMS-e-commerce; and X-ray scanning & CCTV monitoring.
“We believe that cross-border e-commerce can do wonders for our manufacturer exporters both in SEZ and DTA. Therefore, we propose to first initiate and make our SEZs ready to undertake cross-border e-commerce business, which can then be extended to DTA gradually,” he stated.
The Ministry officials assured to move ahead in this direction with both policy and implementation level changes required to facilitate ease of doing business-to-cash in the tremendous opportunities being offered by B2C cross-border e-commerce.