DGFT expands online services for exporters

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 8, 2020

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade under the government’s Ministry of Commerce has issued a notice to all exporters and agencies involved in free trade arrangements stating that it has expanded its online services.

 
The DGFT has decided to expand its Online Platform for Preferential Certificate of Origin to include all free and preferential trade agreements, the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council announced on its website. The DGFT has also expanded its online platform to cover the issuing of all certificates of origin on exports to eliminate the need for physical copies of the document.
 
The DGFT’s online platform previously covered exports from India to Chile, Nepal, and the Republic of Korea under the respective trade agreements. The DGFT has now expanded its online services to cover AIFTA, IJCEPA, SAPTA, SAFTA, APTA, and ISLFTA trade agreements.

The platform will henceforth function as a single-point access under the listed FTAs PTAs for all designated Certificate of Origin CoO issuing agencies and for all export products, the DGFT said in a statement. Exporters will now apply for their Preferential Certificate of Origin paperwork online after the new services came into effect on April 7.
 
The move to expand online services is designed to work with current restrictions cased by the Covid-19 pandemic. Issuing digital certificates instead of hard copies will reduce the need for human contact. After the lockdown ends, exporters will be able to attain both digital and hard copies of relevant certificates, said the DGFT.