Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Commerce & Industry

07-May-2012 15:25 IST

Exports of Gems and Jewellery

As per the EEPC India, the export figures for Engineering Goods were 32.554 Billion US$ for the year 2009-10, 49.786 Billion US$ for 2010-11 (Provisional) and 58.2 Billion US$ for 2011-12 (Provisional). As per DGCI&S, the export figures for Gem & Jewellery were 29.081 Billion US$ for the year 2009-10, 36.876 Billion US$ for 2010-11 and 37.441 Billion US$ for 2011-12 (Provisional upto January, 2012).

The import duty on gold has been increased recently i.e., in the month of March 2012. Therefore no data is available as yet to indicate its impact.

Government has taken a number of steps to increase the export such as providing financial assistance for participation in international fairs, organizing buyer-seller meets etc. under Market Development Assistance (MDA) and Market Access Initiative (MAI) Schemes of the Department of Commerce. Government has also announced a number of measures in the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2009-14 to promote export of Gem & Jewellery such as permission to import diamonds on consignment basis for certification/grading & re-export by specified agencies, increasing the limit of personal carriage of Gem & Jewellery products in case of participation in overseas exhibitions and in case of export promotion tours etc.

This information was given by Shri Jyotiradiya M. Scindia, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

DS/GK

Import duty increase on gold leaves impact uncertain while export promotion measures include consignment diamond imports and relaxed carriage limits. Export figures showed provisional increases through 2011-12 while the recent import duty increase on gold (March 2012) has an undetermined impact. The Government provides export promotion support under MDA and MAI and, under FTP 2009-14, permits consignment import of diamonds for certification/grading and re-export by specified agencies and raises personal carriage limits for exhibition and export promotion participants.