The Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India will continue their deliberations in a day or two on reviewing ‘80:20’ scheme for gold import. This scheme mandates an entity importing gold to re-export 20 per cent of it in value-added form.
Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi chaired a meeting on Thursday to review the scheme in the wake of sharp surge in gold imports, but had to leave for a sudden meeting with the Finance Minister. Thursday’s meeting was attended by Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das besides senior officials from the Finance Ministry and RBI.
Gold imports surged nearly 450 per cent in September, while they rose over 175 per cent in August. This is despite 10 per import duty.
The scheme was introduced July last year to curb imports so that the current account deficit (CAD) could be checked.
In May this year, RBI relaxed the scheme by allowing Star Trading Houses and Premier Trading Houses (registered as nominated agency with Directorate General of Foreign Trade) apart from nominated banks/agencies/entities to import gold under the scheme.