India’s Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) issued draft guidance for comments concerning an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) regime. Among the benefits under the AEO programme would be a higher facilitation level; the facility of direct port delivery or entry; reduced bank guarantees; expedited investigations and dispute resolutions; paperless declarations with no supporting document in a physical form; and trade facilitation by foreign customs authorities with which India has mutual recognition agreements.
The proposal would provide for a three-tier AEO programme, as follows:
- Tier I – Importer or exporter
- Tier II – Importer or exporter custodian, customs broker, etc.
- Tier III – Importer or exporter having AEO status for the last two years or its other business partners are holders of Tier II certificates
Existing holders of valid AEO certificates would be granted Tier II certificates within 15 days of the date when formal guidelines are issued. Existing clients under the “accredited client programme” (ACP) with valid status would be provisionally granted AEO Tier I certificates within 15 days of the issuance of the formal guidelines. ACP clients would need to submit an application for issuance of the certificate within 90 days of the date when the formal guidelines are issued.
Read a June 2016 report [PDF 293 KB] prepared by the KPMG member firm in India: Draft revised Authorised Economic Operator scheme guidelines notified