Shifting Item from “free” category to “restricted” category by Ministry of commerce and Industry, Department of commerce, Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT)
i. Vide Trade Notice No.-37/2019 dated 22.10.2019 members of the Trade and Industry were advised to be careful while filing their bill of entry at the time of import and were advised to mention specific HS codes at 8 digit level, where they exist instead of using the ‘other’ category which is a residual category.
ii. The Ministry of commerce and Industry, Department of commerce, DGFT with vide Trade Notice No.-46/2019-20 dated 17.01.2020 again reiterated that all importers should file their bills of entry with specific codes available for the imported items under ITC (HS), 2017, schedule -1(Import Policy) at 8 digit level, and to avoid as far as possible ‘others’ category.
iii. This time they came with very strict words and they reviewed the matter very shortly, and in the event of non-compliance and continued mis-classification by the importers, Government may consider bringing a licensing regime for all items imported under the ‘others’ category by shifting these items from ‘free’ to ‘restricted’ category.
iv. To cover the practical problem for the importers to not find suitable HS codes related to goods they want to import, they should immediately suggest appropriate HS codes at 8 digit level for such goods.
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