The Centre has suspended till January 31 a mandatory obligation imposed on exporters from November 1 to obtain online Certificates of Origin (CoO) for every outbound consignment.
About Online Certificates of Origin :
It was put in place in late 2019 for exports to countries with whom India had a preferential trade pact.
It was expanded to cover all merchandise exports from November.
It was initiated by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).
Benefits of it:
This online facility provides ‘ease of doing business’ to the exporting community
It gives a verifiable authentication mechanism to the partner countries to confirm the genuineness of the issued CoOs through a QR code which adds credibility to the issued e-CoO.
Reasons for suspension:
Several exporters across States had reported difficulties in registering on the e-CoO platform on the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) portal with the stipulated high-quality digital signature certificates and obtaining the certificates for their shipments.
customs house agents had not been able to share data on exporters’ behalf, as the DGFT had not shared the API (Application Programming Interface) for the new platform.
Indian Exports:
India’s monthly merchandise exports have crossed $30 billion for seven months in a row
It is largely on course to reach the government’s target of a record $400 billion in 2021-22.
