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Reacting to arecanut farmers' concerns, the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has clarified that the move to allow imports by actual users is to help growers.
The DGFT, through a public notice on May 15, had allowed imports of arecanut as a product for export of raw material. “It is actually to help the arecanut growers. The public notice concerns itself with only duty free imports of arecanut either on the basis of advance authorisation or DFIA. It may be noted that duty paid imports are not affected by this public notice,” DGFT, Dr Anup Pujari said in a statement.
Prior to issue of this notice anyone could have imported areca nut under the duty free schemes. After the issue of this notice the class of persons permitted to effect such imports would get limited to the actual users and such importers only and only when the respective Standard Input Output Norms (SION) specifically includes areca nut as a permissible input, DGFT clarified.
“Therefore, if areca nut is not specifically listed as a permissible input, traders and non-manufacturing units would not be permitted to import areca nut under Advance Authorisation and /or DFIA. It is not Government's intention to cause any impediment to manufacturing units (actual users). But non-manufacturing units would face a restriction as explained above” added Dr Pujari.
States such as Kerala had expressed resentment over the Centre's move to allow import of arecanut stating that it would adversely affect growers. Kerala had said it would convey to the Centre its protest against import of arecanut as a product for export raw material.
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