The International Trade Committee of the Bengal Chamber has recently organised a workshop on ‘An In-depth Understanding of FTAs & Customs Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements Rules, 2020 (CAROTAR) and Manufacturing in Bond on 22nd April 2021; on Zoom.

CAROTAR 2020 are regulations introduced by Customs department in 2020 to check misuse of duty concession /exemption under Free Trade Agreements when goods are imported into India. The responsibility of compliance is now transferred from Government agency to business with respect to Certificate of origin. It is therefore essential that importers must understand CAROTAR 2020 to avoid delays in clearance and denial of duty concession / exemption.

Another important area covered in the workshop was Manufacturing in Bond. Its a new scheme introduced by government of India for deferment of duty on import of capital goods as well as inputs for manufacturing products for exports as well as domestic sales. Needless to say, this results into savings in cash outflow on account of duty on imports as well as entire compliance costs of DGFT including license fees. It is therefore, of crucial importance that industry must understand this scheme in details. 

The subject was niche and was of primary importance to importers. The programme was well attended by participants from various corporate. Some of them include, EXIDE Industries Ltd. Tata Steel Ltd, Tata Metaliks Ltd., Century Plyboards(I) Ltd., Wacker Metroarch Chemicals Pvt. Ltd., Anmol Feeds Pvt. Ltd., EMAMI Agrotech Ltd. and many others.