India, UAE looking at ways to expand trade in value-added gold products

India and the UAE are looking at ways to increase trade in value-added gold and gold products, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday.

A decision in this regard would be announced in due course, he said. He said that the UAE is one of the major suppliers of gold to India after Switzerland, and New Delhi would like to encourage that trade even further with the UAE.

India has given certain duty concessions on the import of gold from the UAE under a free trade agreement, officially dubbed as CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) and it was implemented on May 1 last year. There were certain issues with regard to operationalising those concessions which have been sorted out now, he said.

India has given customs duty concessions on imports of gold for up to 200 tonnes per year from the UAE. The import duty in general on gold is 15 per cent.

Now this year, India hopes the UAE exporters would be able to ship the specified quantity of gold under the agreement so that the duty benefit can be enjoyed by the Indian gold jewellery sector. The UAE is a major destination for India's gems and jewellery. The UAE accounts for about 15 per cent of India's exports from this sector.

The overall gross exports of gems and jewellery dipped to USD 37.5 billion in 2022-23 against USD 39.33 billion in 2021-22, according to the data of the gems and jewellery export promotion council.

"We are also looking at other ways to expand and engage our partnership on processing and working together on value addition in gold and gold products, which we will announce in due course," Goyal told reporters here.

On the India-UAE trade agreement, Anil Talreja, Partner, Deloitte India, said that medical tourism, real estate, trading in commodities, and services sector continue to occupy a large share of the pie in terms of overall businesses between organizations existing in each of these countries