Customs Department Proposes Exports Through India Post

Trade & Policy

Customs Department Proposes Exports Through India Post

Indian Customs and Department of India Posts held a first ever joint conference in New Delhi to deliberate on streamlining of imports and exports by post. Commissioners of Customs from all the states having Foreign Post Offices (FPOs) were present, along with their counterpart Post Master Generals.

Customs and Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) have worked together since a year to liberalise, reform and align laws relating to imports by post. Since 2016, e-commerce exports had been allowed through FPOs under MEIS incentives from the post offices at Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Now, Customs may be leading the reform race by permitting e-commerce exports through all FPOs, though without MEIS benefits for now.

One of the major bottlenecks in the postal system is the absence of professional logistics companies which can facilitate SMEs going global through online presence and leaving postal logistics to third parties.

In order to cater to the SMEs and what may come as a major boost to the Make in India programme, Customs are proposing new simplified procedures for exports through India Post.

In a progressive move, Amazon and DHL had been invited for making presentations on global best practices and identifying bottlenecks faced by exporters in India."From a private sector perspective, it was great to see customs and posts coming together to find solutions for Indian e-commerce", said Dr. Pritam Banerjee, Director (South Asia) from DHL.

Chief Commissioner of Customs, Sunil Sawhney, said that improvement in infrastructure at Foreign Post Offices and leveraging strengths of postal department's pan-India outreach can unlock massive export potential.