Import/Export Industry Notifications

Ocean carriers are officially scrapping the low-sulphur fuel surcharges introduced last year to mitigate the impact of the 1 January IMO 0.5% sulphur cap regulations on marine fuel. Maintaining low-sulphur surcharges as fuel prices plunged has been a bone of contention for shippers, who have criticised carriers for being slow to ditch the additional fee.

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Paper and paperboard imports have gone up nearly 10 per cent in 2019-20 to 1,637.3 tonnes from 1,478.2 tonnes. Over the last nine years, it has grown nearly 1,100 per cent. The share of paper imports from ASEAN in total paper imports for India has risen more than four times from about 5 per cent in 2010-11 to about 21 per cent in 2019-20. Ever since ASEAN-India FTA came into force from January 2010 and basic customs duties were progressively reduced to nil in India, imports of paper and paperboard from ASEAN, especially writing and printing paper, have increased at a great pace.

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GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo (GHAC) has launched the Federation of Telangana Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FTCCI) business facilitation centre at its terminal in Hyderabad International Airport. The FTC lends support to the industry and government in promoting economic growth and cross border trade through its various programmes and initiatives. As part of this, the FTCCI business facilitation centre at GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo Terminal will significantly benefit the exporters and cargo agents from the Hyderabad and South India region in multiple ways.

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Sri Lanka decided to ban the import of plastic products in a bid to protect the environment and wildlife, a move likely to hit Indian plastic exports to the country. Environment minister Mahinda Amaraweera told Parliament that the proposed plastic product import ban - mainly on toys and household utensils - could be extended to local manufacturing as well.

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Colombia and Albania would seem to have little in common. But they have been united since the Covid-19 outbreak in banning the export of a product that rarely finds its way into trade policy: toilet paper. they’re the only two countries to have taken such action. But hundreds of other products have been ensnared by the protectionist impulse this year – many, but not all, tied to Covid-19.

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A live webinar on the topic, ‘The Way Forward for Developing India-Central Asia Air Corridor', was organised by FICCI to establish negotiation between India and Uzbekistan for import and export of agricultural products. The combined annual trade with Central Asia is less than US$2 billion. The level of trade does not reflect the political will that we enjoy with Central Asian countries. India is at an advanced stage of negotiation with Uzbekistan for export and import of agricultural products.

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Only the owner of the goods or person entitled to the goods is liable to pay storage or demurrage charges to the port trusts and not the ships or its agents are known as steamer agents. The Supreme Court has ruled in a judgment that settles a long-standing conflict within the shipping industry over the matter.

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The government capped the benefits under the Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS) at Rs 2 crore per exporter on exports made between September 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, without changing the coverage of the scheme and the applicable rates. It also said that the new Import Export Code (IEC) obtained on or after September 1 will be ineligible to submit any MEIS claim for exports, and the ceiling would be subject to a downward revision to ensure that the total claim doesn’t exceed the allocated Rs 5,000 crore for the period.

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At the end of a week of stoppages, the Chilean truckers' strike is of even greater concern to the productive sector, especially food supply chains, due to the absolute lack of any prospect for an agreement or even a definition of the problem. Blocking access to ports may continue to cause problems for fruit exports, as there are ships that are due to set sail this week.

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