Customs Tariff (Determination of Origin of Products under the Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme for Least Developed Countries) Rules, 2015

Noti­fi­ca­tion No. 29/2015 — Cus­toms (N.T.)

New Del­hi, 10th March, 2015

G.S.R.…E).- In exer­cise of the pow­ers con­ferred by sub-sec­tion (1) of sec­tion 5 of the Cus­toms Tar­iff Act, 1975 (51 of 1975) and in super­s­es­sion of the Cus­toms Tar­iff [Deter­mi­na­tion of Ori­gin of Prod­ucts under the Duty Free Tar­iff Pref­er­ence Scheme for Least Devel­oped Coun­tries] Rules, 2008, except as respects things done or omit­ted to be done before such super­s­es­sion, the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment here­by makes the fol­low­ing rules, namely:-

1. Short title and com­mence­ment.- (1) These rules may be called the Cus­toms Tar­iff (Deter­mi­na­tion of Ori­gin of Prod­ucts under the Duty Free Tar­iff Pref­er­ence Scheme for Least Devel­oped Coun­tries) Rules, 2015.

(2) They shall come into force on the date of their pub­li­ca­tion in the Offi­cial Gazette.

2. Def­i­n­i­tions.- In these rules, unless the con­text oth­er­wise requires,-

(a) “Agree­ment on Cus­toms Val­u­a­tion” means the agree­ment on imple­men­ta­tion of Arti­cle VII of the Gen­er­al Agree­ment on Tar­iffs and Trade 1994, con­tained in Annex 1A to the World Trade Organ­i­sa­tion Agreement.

(b) “ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try” means the coun­try noti­fied in the Sched­ule to the noti­fi­ca­tion of the Gov­ern­ment of India, Min­istry of Finance, Depart­ment of Rev­enue, No. 96/2008 — Cus­toms, dat­ed the 13th August, 2008, pub­lished vide num­ber G.S.R. 590 (E), dat­ed the 13th August, 2008 as amend­ed from time to time;

© “car­ri­er” means any vehi­cle for trans­porta­tion by air, sea or land;

(d) “CIF val­ue” means the price actu­al­ly paid or payable to the exporter for a prod­uct includ­ing the cost of the prod­uct, insur­ance, and freight nec­es­sary to deliv­er the prod­uct to the named port of des­ti­na­tion and the val­u­a­tion there­of shall be in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Cus­toms Act, 1962 (52 of 1962);

(e) “cus­toms author­i­ty” means, the author­i­ty that is respon­si­ble for the admin­is­tra­tion and appli­ca­tion of cus­toms law for the time being in force;

(f) “deter­mi­na­tion of ori­gin” means a deter­mi­na­tion as to whether a prod­uct qual­i­fies as an orig­i­nat­ing prod­uct in accor­dance with these rules;

(g) “ex-works val­ue” means the price of the prod­uct for deliv­ery at the fac­to­ry or any oth­er place of man­u­fac­ture of the prod­uct, paid or payable to the man­u­fac­tur­er in the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try, in whose under­tak­ing the last work­ing or pro­cess­ing is car­ried out:

Pro­vid­ed that the price shall not include the inter­nal tax­es which are paid or payable on the prod­ucts and the cost involved in load­ing onto the carrier;

(h) “FOB val­ue” means the price actu­al­ly paid or payable to the exporter for a prod­uct when the prod­uct is loaded onto the car­ri­er at the named port of expor­ta­tion, includ­ing the cost of the prod­uct and all costs nec­es­sary to bring the prod­uct onto the car­ri­er and the val­u­a­tion shall be made in accor­dance with the Agree­ment on Cus­toms Valuation;

(i) “issu­ing author­i­ty” means a Gov­ern­ment Author­i­ty that, accord­ing to the law of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try, is respon­si­ble for the issu­ing of a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin and in the case of India, the Export Inspec­tion Coun­cil estab­lished under sec­tion 3 of the Export (Qual­i­ty Con­trol and Inspec­tion) Act, 1963 (22 of 1963);

(j) “prod­ucts” means any mer­chan­dise, prod­uct, arti­cle or material;

(k) “Har­monised Sys­tem” means the nomen­cla­ture of the Har­monised Com­mod­i­ty Descrip­tion and Cod­ing Sys­tem defined in the Inter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion on the Har­monised Com­mod­i­ty Descrip­tion and Cod­ing Sys­tem includ­ing all legal notes there­to, as adopt­ed and imple­ment­ed by the respec­tive coun­tries under their respec­tive tar­iff laws;

(l) “iden­ti­cal prod­ucts” means prod­ucts that are same in all respects, includ­ing phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics and qual­i­ty, irre­spec­tive of minor dif­fer­ences in appear­ance that are not rel­e­vant to the deter­mi­na­tion of ori­gin of the prod­ucts under these rules;

(m) “mate­ri­als” means ingre­di­ents, raw mate­ri­als, parts, com­po­nents, sub-assem­blies and prod­ucts that are used in the pro­duc­tion of prod­ucts and are phys­i­cal­ly incor­po­rat­ed into the products;

(n) “non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als used in pro­duc­tion” means any mate­ri­als, the coun­try of ori­gin of which is oth­er than the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try and any mate­ri­als, the ori­gin of which can­not be determined;

(o) “orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als” means mate­ri­als that qual­i­fy as orig­i­nat­ing under these rules;

℗ “pack­ing mate­ri­als and con­tain­ers for ship­ment” means prod­ucts used to pro­tect prod­ucts dur­ing their trans­porta­tion, oth­er than those con­tain­ers or mate­ri­als that are used for their retail sale;

(q) “pref­er­en­tial tar­iff” means the rate of cus­toms duties applic­a­ble to an orig­i­nat­ing prod­uct under the noti­fi­ca­tion of the Gov­ern­ment of India, Min­istry of Finance, Depart­ment of Rev­enue, No. 96/2008 — Cus­toms, dat­ed 13th August, 2008, pub­lished vide num­ber G.S.R. 590 (E), dat­ed the 13th August, 2008, as amend­ed from time to time, when import­ed into India from a ben­e­fi­cia­ry country;

® “pro­duc­er” means a per­son who grows, mines, rais­es, har­vests, fish­es, repro­duces and breeds, traps, hunts, man­u­fac­tures, process­es, assem­bles or dis­as­sem­bles products;

(s) “pro­duc­tion” means the method of obtain­ing prod­ucts includ­ing grow­ing, rais­ing, min­ing, extract­ing, har­vest­ing, fish­ing, pro­duc­ing, repro­duc­ing and breed­ing, trap­ping, gath­er­ing, col­lect­ing, hunt­ing and cap­tur­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, pro­cess­ing, assem­bling or disassembling;

(t) “sim­ple” in ref­er­ence to the process­es or oper­a­tions on prod­ucts, gen­er­al­ly describes activ­i­ties which need nei­ther spe­cial skills nor machines, appa­ra­tus or equip­ment espe­cial­ly pro­duced or installed for car­ry­ing out the activity;

(u) “used” means utilised or con­sumed in the pro­duc­tion of products.

3. Orig­i­nat­ing prod­ucts.- (1) For the pur­pos­es of these rules, prod­ucts shall be deemed to have orig­i­nat­ed, if they are con­signed accord­ing to rule 10 and con­form to the fol­low­ing con­di­tions, namely:-

(a) prod­ucts whol­ly obtained or pro­duced in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try as spec­i­fied in rule 4; or

(b) prod­ucts not whol­ly obtained or pro­duced in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try, pro­vid­ed they are eli­gi­ble as spec­i­fied in rule 5.

(2) The prod­ucts which con­form to the con­di­tions under sub-rule (1) shall be eli­gi­ble for pref­er­en­tial tar­iff treatment.

4. Prod­ucts whol­ly obtained or pro­duced.- For the pur­pos­es of clause (a) of sub-rule (1) of rule 3, the fol­low­ing prod­ucts shall be con­sid­ered as being whol­ly obtained or pro­duced in the ter­ri­to­ry of an export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try, namely:-

(a) raw or min­er­al prod­ucts includ­ing min­er­al fuels, lubri­cants and relat­ed mate­ri­als as well as min­er­al or met­al ores extract­ed from its territory;

(b) plant and plant prod­ucts, includ­ing agri­cul­tur­al, veg­etable and forestry prod­ucts grown or har­vest­ed there;

© live ani­mals born and raised there;

(d) prod­ucts obtained from ani­mals referred to in clause ©;

(e) prod­ucts obtained by hunt­ing, trap­ping, fish­ing or aqua­cul­ture con­duct­ed there;

(f) prod­ucts of sea fish­ing and oth­er marine prod­ucts tak­en from out­side its ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters and exclu­sive eco­nom­ic zone by ves­sels reg­is­tered and fly­ing the flag of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry country;

(g) prod­ucts processed or made on board its fac­to­ry ships exclu­sive­ly from prod­ucts referred to in clause (f);

(h) scrap and waste derived from man­u­fac­tur­ing or pro­cess­ing oper­a­tions con­duct­ed there and fit only for dis­pos­al or for the recov­ery of raw materials;

(i) used arti­cles col­lect­ed there which can no longer per­form their orig­i­nal func­tion, nor are capa­ble of being restored or repaired and which are fit only for dis­pos­al or for the recov­ery of parts or raw materials;

(j) prod­ucts tak­en from the seabed, sub­soil or ocean floor there­of beyond its ter­ri­to­ry, pro­vid­ed the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try has the rights to exploit that sea bed, sub­soil or ocean floor in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Unit­ed Nations Con­ven­tion on the Law of the Sea;

(k) prod­ucts pro­duced there exclu­sive­ly from the prod­ucts referred to in claus­es (a) to (j).

5. Prod­ucts not whol­ly obtained or pro­duced.- (1) For the pur­pos­es of clause (b) of sub-rule (1) of rule 3, prod­ucts not whol­ly obtained or pro­duced shall be con­sid­ered as orig­i­nat­ing in the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try if they ful­fill the fol­low­ing conditions:-

(a) the total val­ue of the non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als used in the man­u­fac­ture of the export prod­uct does not exceed sev­en­ty per cent. of the FOB val­ue or ex-works val­ue of the prod­uct so pro­duced or obtained (that is, the local val­ue added con­tent in the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try is at least thir­ty per cent.);

(b) the prod­uct has under­gone a change in tar­iff clas­si­fi­ca­tion in sub-head­ing at the 6 dig­it lev­el of the Har­mo­nized Sys­tem nomen­cla­ture from the tar­iff clas­si­fi­ca­tion in which the non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­r­i­al used in its man­u­fac­ture are clas­si­fied; and

© the final process of man­u­fac­ture is per­formed with­in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry country.

(2) For the pur­pose of cal­cu­lat­ing the “local val­ue added con­tent” referred to in sub-rule (1), one or oth­er of the fol­low­ing for­mu­lae shall be applied:-

 (3) The val­ue of the non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als used in the pro­duc­tion of a prod­uct shall be,-

(a) for mate­ri­als, the coun­try of ori­gin of which is oth­er than the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try or India, the CIF val­ue; or

(b) for mate­ri­als, the ori­gin of which can­not be deter­mined, the ear­li­est price ascer­tained to have been paid in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try where the work­ing or pro­cess­ing takes place, in accor­dance with the Agree­ment on Cus­toms Valuation.

Expla­na­tion 1.- For the pur­pose of cal­cu­la­tion of val­ue of the non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als, duties and tax­es on the mate­r­i­al paid in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try or both of India and the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try shall not be includ­ed, and if already includ­ed in such val­ue, such expens­es shall be deducted.

Expla­na­tion 2.- All costs referred to in these rules shall be record­ed and main­tained in accor­dance with the gen­er­al­ly accept­ed account­ing prin­ci­ples applic­a­ble in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try in which the prod­uct is produced.

6. Non-qual­i­fy­ing oper­a­tions.- (1) Notwith­stand­ing any­thing con­tained in these rules, a prod­uct shall not be con­sid­ered to have sat­is­fied the require­ments for an orig­i­nat­ing prod­uct referred to in rule 5 mere­ly by rea­son of going through the fol­low­ing oper­a­tions or process­es, namely:-

(a) oper­a­tions to ensure the preser­va­tion of prod­ucts in good con­di­tion dur­ing trans­port and stor­age such as dry­ing, freez­ing, keep­ing in brine, ven­ti­la­tion, spread­ing out, chill­ing, plac­ing in salt, sul­phur diox­ide or oth­er aque­ous solu­tions, removal of dam­aged parts, and like operations;

(b) sim­ple oper­a­tions con­sist­ing of removal of dust, sift­ing or screen­ing, sort­ing, clas­si­fy­ing, match­ing includ­ing the mak­ing-up of sets of arti­cles, wash­ing, paint­ing and cutting;

© changes of pack­ing and break­ing up and assem­bly of consignments;

(d) sim­ple cut­ting, slic­ing and repack­ing or plac­ing in bot­tles, flasks, bags, box­es, fix­ing on cards or boards, and all oth­er sim­ple pack­ing operations;

(e) affix­ing of marks, labels or oth­er like dis­tin­guish­ing signs on prod­ucts or on their packaging;

(f) sim­ple mix­ing of prod­ucts whether or not of dif­fer­ent kinds, where one or more com­po­nents of the mix­ture do not meet the con­di­tions laid down in these rules to enable them to be con­sid­ered as orig­i­nat­ing products;

(g) sim­ple assem­bly of parts of prod­ucts to con­sti­tute a com­plete prod­uct or dis­as­sem­bly of prod­ucts into parts or pack­ing thereof;

(h) slaugh­ter of animals;

(i) mere dilu­tion or mix­ing of prod­ucts with water or anoth­er sub­stance that does not mate­ri­al­ly alter the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the prod­ucts so obtained;

(j) a com­bi­na­tion of two or more oper­a­tions referred to in claus­es (a) to (i).

(2) All oper­a­tions car­ried out in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try on a giv­en prod­uct shall be con­sid­ered togeth­er when deter­min­ing whether the work­ing or pro­cess­ing under­gone by that prod­uct is to be regard­ed as insuf­fi­cient with­in the mean­ing of sub-rule (1).

Expla­na­tion.- For the pur­pos­es of this rule, “sim­ple mix­ing” gen­er­al­ly describes activ­i­ties which need nei­ther spe­cial skills nor machines, appa­ra­tus or equip­ment espe­cial­ly pro­duced or installed for car­ry­ing out the activ­i­ty but does not include chem­i­cal reac­tion which is a process, includ­ing a bio­chem­i­cal process, result­ing in a mol­e­cule with a new struc­ture by break­ing intra-mol­e­c­u­lar bonds and by form­ing new intra-mol­e­c­u­lar bonds, or by alter­ing the spa­tial arrange­ment of atoms in a molecule.

7. Accu­mu­la­tion.- Where the orig­i­nat­ing mate­r­i­al from India is incor­po­rat­ed in the pro­duc­tion of a prod­uct in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try, such mate­r­i­al shall be con­sid­ered to orig­i­nate in the ter­ri­to­ry of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry country.

8. Pack­ing mate­ri­als and con­tain­ers for retail sale.- For the pur­pos­es of these rules, any pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als and con­tain­ers in which a prod­uct is pack­aged for retail sale, if clas­si­fied with the prod­uct, shall not be tak­en into account in deter­min­ing whether all the non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als used in the pro­duc­tion of the prod­uct under­go the applic­a­ble change in tar­iff clas­si­fi­ca­tion, and, if the prod­uct is sub­ject to a local val­ue added con­tent require­ment, the val­ue of such pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als and con­tain­ers shall be tak­en into account as orig­i­nat­ing or non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als, as the case may be, in cal­cu­lat­ing the local val­ue added con­tent of the product.

9. Pack­ing mate­ri­als and con­tain­ers for ship­ment.- For the pur­pos­es of these rules, any pack­ing mate­ri­als and con­tain­ers in which a prod­uct is packed for ship­ment shall not be tak­en into account in deter­min­ing whether,-

(a) the non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als used in the pro­duc­tion of the prod­uct have under­gone an applic­a­ble change in tar­iff clas­si­fi­ca­tion; and

(b) the prod­uct sat­is­fies a local val­ue added con­tent requirement.

10. Direct Con­sign­ment.- (1) Prod­ucts, in respect of which tar­iff pref­er­ence is claimed, shall be con­sid­ered as direct­ly con­signed from the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try if,-

(a) these prod­ucts are trans­port­ed with­out pass­ing through the ter­ri­to­ry of any oth­er coun­try; or

(b) the trans­port of these prod­ucts involves tran­sit through one or more inter­me­di­ate coun­tries with or with­out trans-ship­ment or tem­po­rary stor­age in such coun­tries, where,-

(i) their tran­sit entry is jus­ti­fied for geo­graph­i­cal rea­sons or by con­sid­er­a­tions relat­ed exclu­sive­ly to trans­port requirements;

(ii) the prod­ucts have not entered into trade or con­sump­tion there;

(iii) the prod­ucts have not under­gone any oper­a­tion oth­er than unload­ing and reload­ing or any oper­a­tion required to keep them in good con­di­tion; and

(iv) the prod­ucts have remained under the cus­toms con­trol in the coun­try of transit.

(2) For the pur­pose of claim­ing tar­iff pref­er­ence for the import­ed prod­uct con­sid­er­ing such prod­uct as direct­ly con­signed from the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try in terms of this rule, the fol­low­ing shall be pro­duced before the cus­toms author­i­ty of India at the time of impor­ta­tion, namely:-

(a) a through bill of lad­ing issued in the export­ing country;

(b) a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin issued by the issu­ing author­i­ty of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry country;

© a copy of the orig­i­nal com­mer­cial invoice in respect of the prod­uct; and

(d) sup­port­ing doc­u­ments in evi­dence that oth­er require­ments of this rule have been com­plied with.

11. Com­pe­tent author­i­ties.- Each ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try shall noti­fy the name, des­ig­na­tion, address, tele­phone num­ber, fax num­ber, and email of its issu­ing author­i­ty to the author­i­ty in the Cen­tral Board of Excise and Cus­toms, Depart­ment of Rev­enue, Min­istry of Finance, Gov­ern­ment of India, spec­i­fied in Annex­ure A to these rules.

12. Spec­i­men sig­na­tures and seals.- Each ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try shall pro­vide through post and elec­tron­ic mail, names and address­es of the offi­cials autho­rised to sign the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin and also pro­vide the orig­i­nal sets of their spec­i­men sig­na­tures and spec­i­men of offi­cial seals to the author­i­ty in the Cen­tral Board of Excise and Cus­toms, Depart­ment of Rev­enue, Min­istry of Finance, Gov­ern­ment of India spec­i­fied in Annex­ure A to these rules.

13. Appli­ca­tion for issue of cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin.- Any exporter or pro­duc­er seek­ing grant of a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin under these rules shall apply to the issu­ing author­i­ty of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try as per for­mat in Annex­ure B to these rules.

14. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of appli­ca­tion.- (1) The issu­ing author­i­ties shall, to the best of their com­pe­tence and abil­i­ty, car­ry out prop­er exam­i­na­tion upon each appli­ca­tion for a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin to ensure -

(a) that the appli­ca­tion for the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin is duly com­plet­ed and signed by the exporter or pro­duc­er or its autho­rised signatory;

(b) to car­ry out such rea­son­able checks as to deter­mine whether a prod­uct qual­i­fies as an orig­i­nat­ing prod­uct in accor­dance with these rules;

© that the oth­er state­ments in the appli­ca­tion for cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin cor­re­spond to the sup­port­ing doc­u­men­tary evi­dence submitted.

(2) The issu­ing author­i­ty may, if it deems nec­es­sary, take up the appli­ca­tion for pre-export ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the ori­gin of the product.

15. Issuance of cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin.- (1) The prod­ucts eli­gi­ble for pref­er­en­tial treat­ment shall be sup­port­ed by a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin as per the for­mat in Annex­ure C to the rules, issued by the issu­ing authority.

(2) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be in Inter­na­tion­al Organ­i­sa­tion for Stan­dard­i­s­a­tion (ISO) A4 size paper.

(3) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin issued by the issu­ing author­i­ty shall indi­cate the rel­e­vant rules and applic­a­ble per­cent­age of local val­ue added con­tent in space pro­vid­ed for that pur­pose in the cer­tifi­cate of origin.

(4) Each cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin issued by the issu­ing author­i­ty shall bear a unique ser­i­al number.

(5) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be made in English.

(6) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall com­prise one orig­i­nal and three copies,-

(a) the orig­i­nal copy shall be for­ward­ed, togeth­er with the trip­li­cate, by the exporter to the importer;

(b) only the orig­i­nal copy will be sub­mit­ted by the importer to the cus­toms author­i­ty at the port or place of importation;

© the dupli­cate shall be retained by the issu­ing author­i­ty in the ben­e­fi­cia­ry country;

(d) the trip­li­cate shall be retained by the importer; and

(e) the qua­dru­pli­cate shall be retained by the exporter.

(7) No era­sures and super­im­po­si­tions shall be allowed on the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin, the alter­ations if any, shall be made by strik­ing out the errors and mak­ing any addi­tion required and such alter­ations shall be approved and cer­ti­fied by an offi­cial autho­rised to sign the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin, and unused spaces shall be crossed out to pre­vent any sub­se­quent addition.

(8) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be issued at the time of expor­ta­tion, or with­in sev­en work­ing days from the date of ship­ment when­ev­er the prod­uct to be export­ed can be con­sid­ered orig­i­nat­ing in the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try but under excep­tion­al cas­es, where a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin has not been issued at the time of expor­ta­tion or with­in sev­en work­ing days from the date of ship­ment due to invol­un­tary errors or omis­sions, or any oth­er valid rea­sons, the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin may be issued ret­ro­spec­tive­ly but not lat­er than one month from the date of ship­ment, bear­ing the words “ISSUED RETROSPECTIVELY” in box 4 of the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin, and the issu­ing author­i­ty shall also record rea­sons in writ­ing stat­ing the excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances due to which the cer­tifi­cate has been issued retrospectively.

(9) In the event of theft, loss or destruc­tion of a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin, the exporter may apply in writ­ing to the issu­ing author­i­ty which issued it for a cer­ti­fied true copy of the orig­i­nal and the trip­li­cate, to be made on the basis of the export doc­u­ments in his pos­ses­sion bear­ing the endorse­ment of the words “CERTIFIED TRUE COPY”, (in lieu of the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cate) in box 4 of the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin and this copy shall bear the date of the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin, and the cer­ti­fied true copy of a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be issued not lat­er than one year from the date of issuance of the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin and on the con­di­tion that the exporter pro­vides to the rel­e­vant issu­ing author­i­ty the quadruplicate.

16. Valid­i­ty.- (1) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be valid for one year from the date of its issuance.

(2) Mul­ti­ple items declared on a sin­gle invoice and sin­gle cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be allowed by the cus­toms author­i­ty in India, pro­vid­ed each item qual­i­fies sep­a­rate­ly on its own.

(3) The inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty of any one or more of the mul­ti­ple items declared under a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall not affect or delay the grant­i­ng of pref­er­en­tial tar­iff and cus­toms clear­ance of the remain­ing items list­ed in that cer­tifi­cate of origin.

17. Pre­sen­ta­tion.- (1) Except for the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin issued ret­ro­spec­tive­ly, the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be sub­mit­ted to the cus­toms author­i­ty in India at the time of lodg­ing the import dec­la­ra­tion for the prod­uct for which pref­er­en­tial tar­iff is claimed:

Pro­vid­ed that a claim for pref­er­en­tial treat­ment made on the basis of a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin issued ret­ro­spec­tive­ly shall be grant­ed sub­ject to and in accor­dance with the law for the time being in force in India.

(2) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be sub­mit­ted with­in its valid­i­ty period.

(3) The cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin sub­mit­ted to the cus­toms author­i­ty at port of impor­ta­tion after the expi­ra­tion of the peri­od spec­i­fied in sub-rule (1) of rule 16, shall be accept­ed for the pur­pose of claim­ing pref­er­en­tial tar­iff when the fail­ure to observe the time lim­it results from force majeure or oth­er valid rea­sons beyond the con­trol of the exporter:

Pro­vid­ed that in all cas­es, the cus­to­cus­to ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion­ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion­ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion­ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion­ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion­ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion ms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion shall accept such cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin if the prod­ucts have been import­ed before the expiry of the valid­i­ty peri­od of the said cer­tifi­cate of origin.

(4) The cus­toms author­i­ty may request an importer for infor­ma­tion or doc­u­ments relat­ing to the ori­gin of import­ed prod­uct in accor­dance with the law for the time being in force in India.

18. Dis­crep­an­cies in cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin.- Minor dis­crep­an­cies between the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin and the doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted to the cus­toms author­i­ty at the port of impor­ta­tion­at the port of impor­ta­tion at the port of impor­ta­tion at the port of impor­ta­tion­at the port of impor­ta­tion­at the port of impor­ta­tion at the port of impor­ta­tion­at the port of impor­ta­tion at the port of impor­ta­tion­at the port of impor­ta­tion at the port of impor­ta­tion at the port of impor­ta­tion at the port of impor­ta­tion for the pur­pose of car­ry­ing out the for­mal­i­ties for import­ing the prod­ucts shall not ipso fac­to inval­i­date the cer­tifi­cate of origin:

Pro­vid­ed that, such cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin cor­re­sponds to the prod­ucts under importation.

19. Spe­cial cas­es.Spe­cial cases.Special cases.Special cases.Special cas­es. Spe­cial cases.Special cases.Special cas­es. — When des­ti­na­tion of all or part of the prod­ucts export­ed to a spec­i­fied port in India is changed, before or after their arrival in India, -

(a) if the prod­ucts have already been sub­mit­ted to the cus­toms author­i­ty in India in the spec­i­fied import­ing port, on writ­ten request from the importer, the cus­toms author­i­ty shall endorse to this effect for all or part of the prod­ucts in the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin and return it to the importer; and

(b) if the change of des­ti­na­tion spec­i­fied in the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin occurs dur­ing trans­porta­tion of the prod­ucts to India, the exporter shall apply in writ­ing to the con­cerned issu­ing author­i­ty of the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try accom­pa­nied with the issued cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin, for amend­ment of des­ti­na­tion in the cer­tifi­cate of origin.

20. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion.- When­ev­er there is a rea­son­able doubt as to the authen­tic­i­ty of the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin or as to the accu­ra­cy of the infor­ma­tion regard­ing the true ori­gin of the prod­uct cov­ered under the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin or of cer­tain part there­of, or at ran­dom, the Cen­tral Board of Excise and Cus­toms may request the issu­ing author­i­ty of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try for a retroac­tive check in accor­dance with the fol­low­ing pro­ce­dure, namely:-

(a) the request for such retroac­tive check shall be accom­pa­nied with the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin, invoice and bill of lad­ing or air­way bill, as the case may be;

(b) a ques­tion­naire con­tain­ing the ques­tions to which a response is required may be for­ward­ed to the issu­ing author­i­ty of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry country;

© the prod­uct, pend­ing clear­ance due to the ver­i­fi­ca­tion, may be released to the importer by tak­ing any admin­is­tra­tive mea­sures deemed nec­es­sary, includ­ing obtain­ing a secu­ri­ty from the importer; and

(d) the issu­ing author­i­ty receiv­ing a request for a retroac­tive check shall prompt­ly trans­mit the results of the ver­i­fi­ca­tion to the Cen­tral Board of Excise and Cus­toms within,-

(i) fif­teen days of the date of receipt of the request, if the request per­tains to the authen­tic­i­ty of seal and sig­na­tures of the issu­ing author­i­ty of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry country;

(ii) thir­ty days of the date of receipt of the request, if the request is to seek a copy of the appli­ca­tion made by the exporter or producer;

(iii) three months from the date of receipt of such request, if the request is on the grounds of sus­pi­cion of the accu­ra­cy of the infor­ma­tion regard­ing the ori­gin of the product;

(e) when the cus­toms author­i­ty in India is not sat­is­fied with the results of the retroac­tive check pur­suant to claus­es (a) and (b), it may con­duct ver­i­fi­ca­tion in the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try by means of ver­i­fi­ca­tion vis­it to the premis­es of the exporter or pro­duc­er in the ben­e­fi­cia­ry country;

(f) before con­duct­ing a ver­i­fi­ca­tion vis­it referred to in clause (e), the cus­toms author­i­ty in India shall deliv­er a writ­ten request regard­ing its inten­tion to con­duct the ver­i­fi­ca­tion vis­it to the issu­ing author­i­ty of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try where the ver­i­fi­ca­tion vis­it is to occur;

(g) the writ­ten request men­tioned in clause (f) shall include the fol­low­ing, namely:-

(i) the name of the pro­duc­er or exporter whose premis­es are to be visited;

(ii) the pro­posed dates of the ver­i­fi­ca­tion visit;

(iii) the names and des­ig­na­tions of the offi­cials per­form­ing the ver­i­fi­ca­tion visit;

(h) the issu­ing author­i­ty referred to in clause (f) shall con­vey writ­ten con­sent for the vis­it with­in thir­ty days of receipt of the request men­tioned in clause (f);

(i) the ver­i­fi­ca­tion vis­it shall be car­ried out with­in six­ty days from the date of receipt of the writ­ten con­sent referred to in clause (h), or with­in such longer peri­od as may be mutu­al­ly agreed;

(j) after con­duct­ing the ver­i­fi­ca­tion vis­it, the importer and the con­cerned issu­ing author­i­ty shall be pro­vid­ed with a writ­ten deter­mi­na­tion of whether or not the sub­ject prod­uct qual­i­fies as an orig­i­nat­ing product.

21. Denial of pref­er­en­tial tar­iff treat­ment.- (1) Except as oth­er­wise pro­vid­ed in these rules, claim for pref­er­en­tial tar­iff treat­ment may be denied when,-

(a) the prod­uct does not meet the require­ments of these rules;

(b) the exporter, pro­duc­er or importer of the prod­uct fail to demon­strate com­pli­ance with the require­ments under these rules;

© the exporter, pro­duc­er or importer of the prod­uct deny access to the rel­e­vant records or documentation;

(d) the issu­ing author­i­ty of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try fails to pro­vide the infor­ma­tion in pur­suance to a writ­ten request for verification;

(e) the con­sent to a request for ver­i­fi­ca­tion vis­it is not received from the issu­ing author­i­ty or the exporter or pro­duc­er in the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try; and

(f) the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the issu­ing author­i­ty or exporter or pro­duc­er in the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try is not suf­fi­cient to prove that the prod­uct qual­i­fies as an orig­i­nat­ing prod­uct of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry country.

(2) In cas­es where the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin is reject­ed by the cus­toms author­i­ty in India, the orig­i­nal cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin shall be returned to the issu­ing author­i­ty with­in a rea­son­able peri­od but not exceed­ing two months from the date of such rejection:

Pro­vid­ed that the grounds for denial of pref­er­en­tial tar­iff treat­ment shall be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the importer and the issu­ing authority.

22. Record keep­ing require­ments.- The appli­ca­tion for cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin and all doc­u­ments relat­ed to such appli­ca­tion shall be retained by the issu­ing author­i­ty for not less than five years from the date of issuance of the said certificate.

23. Action against fraud­u­lent acts.- When it is sus­pect­ed that fraud­u­lent acts in con­nec­tion with the cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin have been com­mit­ted, the con­cerned issu­ing author­i­ty shall coop­er­ate with the Indi­an author­i­ties in respect of tak­ing of penal action against the per­sons involved, in accor­dance with the law for the time being in force in India.

24. Sus­pen­sion of pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.- (1) The Gov­ern­ment of India may sus­pend the tar­iff pref­er­ence in respect of all or cer­tain prod­ucts orig­i­nat­ing in a ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try qual­i­fied as per rule 4 or rule 5,-

(a) where there is suf­fi­cient evi­dence that the with­draw­al is jus­ti­fied due to fraud, irreg­u­lar­i­ties, or sys­tem­at­ic fail­ure to com­ply with any of the pro­vi­sions of these rules; or

(b) where imports under these rules sig­nif­i­cant­ly exceed the usu­al lev­els of pro­duc­tion and export capac­i­ty of a ben­e­fi­cia­ry country.

(2) The export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try shall, with­in fif­teen days of the sus­pen­sion of pref­er­en­tial tar­iff ben­e­fits, be com­mu­ni­cat­ed the rea­sons for such suspension.

(3) Upon receipt of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion for sus­pen­sion, the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try may request for con­sul­ta­tions and the con­sul­ta­tions may occur by means of e‑mail com­mu­ni­ca­tions, video con­fer­ence or meet­ings and may also involve joint inves­ti­ga­tion, as may be mutu­al­ly agreed.

(4) Pur­suant to a request received for con­sul­ta­tion, the issue shall be resolved at the ear­li­est in the form of,-

(a) restora­tion of pref­er­en­tial ben­e­fit to the prod­uct with ret­ro­spec­tive effect; or

(b) restora­tion of pref­er­en­tial ben­e­fit to the prod­uct with prospec­tive effect, sub­ject to imple­men­ta­tion of any mutu­al­ly agreed mea­sures by one or both par­ties; or

© denial of pref­er­en­tial ben­e­fits to the product.

Annex­ure — A

[See rules 11 and 12]

The author­i­ty in the Cen­tral Board of Excise and Cus­toms, Depart­ment of Rev­enue, Min­istry of Finance, Gov­ern­ment of India is as follows:-

The Direc­tor (Inter­na­tion­al Customs),

Cen­tral Board of Excise and Customs,

Depart­ment of Revenue,

Min­istry of Finance, Gov­ern­ment of India,

Room No. 49, North Block,

New Del­hi 110001,

INDIA.

Tele­phone: +91 11 2309 3380

Fax +91 11 2309 3760

e‑mail: diricd-cbec@nic.in

Annex­ure — B

[See rule 13]

1. Name and Address of the Exporter /Manufacturer:

2. Reg­is­tra­tion Number:

3. Coun­try of origin:

All cost and price fig­ures are to be shown in US dollars ($)

1. Export Prod­uct-wise gen­er­al information:

S. No.	Descrip­tion of the product	Model/Brand	HS code	FOB / ex-works value

1. Prod­uct ‑wise mate­r­i­al cost infor­ma­tion (to be fur­nished for each prod­uct list­ed in Para 4 above):

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
Sl. no.	Descrip­tion of com­po­nent, mate­ri­als, inputs, parts or produce	Quan­ti­ty and Unit	Unit Val­ue	Total Val­ue	HS Code (at six dig­it level)	Supplier‟s name and address	Coun­try of Ori­gin of the com­po­nent, mate­ri­als, inputs, parts or produce

In col­umn H, the entry shall be made to indi­cate the Coun­try of Ori­gin in terms of the Cus­toms Tar­iff (Deter­mi­na­tion of Ori­gin of Prod­ucts under the Duty Free Tar­iff Pref­er­ence Scheme for Least Devel­oped Coun­tries) Rules, 2015 as one of the following:-

(i) India;

(ii) the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try of the issu­ing authority;

(iii) non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als used in production.

1. Cal­cu­la­tion

(i) Val­ue of non-orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als used in pro­duc­tion as a per­cent­age of FOB/ ex-works value:____

(ii) Val­ue of orig­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als as a per­cent­age of FOB/ ex-works value:_____

DECLARATION

I declare that the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by me as above is true and correct.

I will per­mit, as and when required, inspec­tion of our factory/products and under­take to main­tain up to date cost­ing records.

Sig­na­ture, Name and Des­ig­na­tion of the signatory

FOR OFFICIAL USE

The par­tic­u­lars giv­en above have been checked, ver­i­fied by the records main­tained by the appli­cant and found to be cor­rect .On the strength of this evi­dence, the appli­cant is eli­gi­ble to claim that the prod­ucts have orig­i­nat­ed from ____________ as shown in ser­i­al num­ber 3 above in terms of the pro­vi­sions of Cus­toms Tar­iff (Deter­mi­na­tion of Ori­gin of Prod­ucts under the Duty Free Tar­iff Pref­er­ence Scheme for Least Devel­oped Coun­tries) Rules, 2015.

Place and Date:

Sig­na­ture and Name of the Com­pe­tent Author­i­ty with Offi­cial Seal

Annex­ure — C

[See rule 15(1)]

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN

1. Prod­uct con­signed from (Exporters‟ Busi­ness Name, Address, Country)			Ref­er­ence No. Duty Free Tar­iff Pref­er­ence Scheme by India for Least Devel­oped Countries (Com­bined dec­la­ra­tion and certificate) Issued in…………………………. (Coun­try) (See notes overleaf)
2. Prod­uct con­signed to (Consignee‟s Name, Address, Country)			4. For Offi­cial use
3. Means of trans­port and route (as far as known)
5. HS Code	6. Marks and num­bers of packages	7. Num­ber and kind of pack­ages: descrip­tion of products	8. Ori­gin cri­te­ri­on (see Notes overleaf)	9. Gross weight or oth­er quantity	10. Num­ber and date of invoice
11. Dec­la­ra­tion by the Exporter The under­signed here­by declares that the above details and state­ments are cor­rect; that all the prod­ucts were pro­duced in ……………………………………… (Coun­try) and that they com­ply with the ori­gin require­ments spec­i­fied for those prod­ucts in Duty Free Tar­iff Pref­er­ence Scheme by India for Least Devel­oped Countries ……………………………………… (Import­ing Country) ………………………………………… Place and date, name and sig­na­ture of the autho­rised signatory			12. Cer­tifi­cate: It is here­by cer­ti­fied, on the basis of con­trol car­ried out, that the dec­la­ra­tion by the exporter is correct. ………………………………………… Place and date Sig­na­ture, name and stamp of cer­ti­fy­ing authority

Over­leaf Notes to Cer­tifi­cate of Origin

Entries to be made in Box 8

1. Pref­er­ence prod­ucts must be whol­ly pro­duced or obtained in the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try in accor­dance with rule 4 of the Cus­toms Tar­iff (Deter­mi­na­tion of Ori­gin of Prod­ucts under the Duty Free Tar­iff Pref­er­ence Scheme for Least Devel­oped Coun­tries) Rules, 2015 or where not whol­ly pro­duced or obtained in the export­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try they must be eli­gi­ble under rule 5 of the said rules.

1. For prod­ucts whol­ly pro­duced or obtained — enter the let­ter ‘A’ in box 8.

2. For prod­ucts not whol­ly pro­duced or obtained -

(i) enter the let­ter ‘B’ in box 8 for prod­ucts, which meet the ori­gin cri­te­ria accord­ing to rule 5 of the afore­said rules. Entry of let­ter ‘B’ shall be fol­lowed by the per­cent­age of local val­ue added con­tent, as cal­cu­lat­ed under clause (a) or clause (b) of sub-rule (2) of rule 5 of the said rules: [exam­ple B ( ___ ) per cent.];

(ii) enter let­ter ‘C’ in box 8 for prod­ucts, which meet the ori­gin cri­te­ria accord­ing to rule 5, read with rule 7 of the afore­said rules. Entry of let­ter „C‟ shall be fol­lowed by the per­cent­age of local val­ue added con­tent, as cal­cu­lat­ed under clause (a) or clause (b) of sub-rule (2) of rule 5, read with rule 7 of the said rules: [exam­ple ‘C’ (Local: ___ per cent.; Indi­an: ___ per cent.; Total: ____ per cent.)].

[F. No. 21000/11/2013-Direc­tor (ICD)]

(Satya­jit Mohanty)

Direc­tor to the Gov­ern­ment of India