Mumbai: India will soon have mutual recognition agreements to enable trusted companies to get preference at custom clearance and other regulatory leeway for boosting bilateral trade.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) chairman Sanjay Kumar Agarwal announced while addressing the Global Authorised Economic Operator Conference of actively pursuing negotiations to sign mutual recognition agreements with multiple nations, including Japan and South Africa.
The benefits that accredited merchants and companies get under these schemes include priority customs processing, lower inspection rates, and acceptance of self-declaration of origin of goods, which is a vital certificate for cross-border trade. The cross-border trade facilitation for customs clearance is different from a free trade agreement between two nations.
Last month India had signed bilateral agreement with Russia making it the eighth partner nation to have a cross-border trade facilitation deal after the US, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia.
“India has identified 30 nations to sign mutual recognition agreements,” confirmed CBDT chairman Sanjay Agarwal adding the agreements will issue mutual recognition agreement licences to trusted companies and conglomerates to carry out bilateral trade. The mutual recognition agreements will thrust on expanding Indian footprint in global trade and diversifying its trade partners.
