Government’s strictness on import of silver bar, put in restricted category, government permission required for import

The Indian government has tightened the import of silver and put it in the banned category. DGFT (Directorate General of Foreign Trade) has changed the import rules of silver bars. Now some types of silver bars will not be easily imported from abroad. The government has changed the import category from “Free” to “Restricted”. This rule has come into effect immediately. Silver bars containing 99.9% or more pure silver will come under the purview of this rule. Now government approval or license may be required to import such silver. Earlier, silver bars could be imported easily under RBI rules.

The aim of the government is to keep a closer watch on the import of silver. For this reason it has been kept in the restricted category. The move comes just days after heavy customs duty was imposed on precious metals. Import of goods falling under restricted category requires a government license. On May 13, the government had increased the import duty on precious metals from six percent to 15 percent. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade said in a notification that the import policy of silver, including silver mixed with gold and platinum, has been changed from free to restricted category with immediate effect.

Silver imports jumped 157 percent in April

According to Commerce Ministry data, silver imports increased by 157.16 percent to $411 million in April. According to Commerce Secretary Rajesh Aggarwal, the increase in import duty will affect the import of gold and silver this year and it may decrease. He said that due to the large industrial use of silver, the impact of duty increase on it may be relatively less. Due to high prices, silver imports increased by almost 150 percent to $12 billion in the last financial year. In terms of quantity, it increased by 42 percent to 7,334.96 tonnes. The country’s trade deficit widened to a three-month high of $28.38 billion due to increase in gold and silver imports in April.

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