Gujarat's GIFT city to get gold imports from UAE

GIFT City will be nominated as an agency to import 200 tonnes of gold from the United Arab Emirates under the recently signed Free Trade Agreement said Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, during his visit to Gujarat Saturday.

“I have take a decision which profits GIFT City and its expansion. Recently, we signed an FTA with the UAE. This agreement has come into force from May 1 under which almost 100 per cent of items exported to the UAE will go as duty-free. We have also allowed some items to be imported from the UAE with lesser duty. In order to encourage our gem and jewellery sector, 200 tonnes of gold will be brought at discounted rates to India. We will nominate GIFT City as the agency to import the gold,” said Goyal during his interaction with media persons at iHub, a student startup and innovation hub in Ahmedabad.

Goyal who had visited GIFT City at Gandhinagar and interacted with officials on Saturday morning said the imported gold will be distributed from GIFT City to other parts of the country.

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“This solves a big problem of middlemen faced by the gem and jewellery sector. Due to these middlemen, gold purchases used to be expensive. With today’s decision, we have solved their problem too,” he added.

Piyush Goyal reviewed the functioning of the GIFT special economic zone on Monday.

Gujarat International Finance Tech-city special economic zone is India's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). It is being developed as a global financial services hub.

It was operationalised by the central government in April 2015.
"Held a fruitful interaction with industry representatives at GIFT City. Discussed benefits of setting up units here," Goyal said in a tweet.

The minister also held interactions at the International Bullion Exchange (IIBX) in GIFT City to understand issues with respect to trading of gold; operationalising the gold spot exchange and reducing the cost of gold metal loans for jewellery exporters through the GIFT IFSC.

"Urged representatives of Jewellery sector to discover competitive prices for gold through IIBX," he said.

The minister issued directions to improve the trading of gold on the IIBX, including enabling the utilisation of the TRQ (Tariff Rate Quota) on gold obtained in the trade pact with the UAE.