Big Jewellers Got Concessional UAE Gold Imports. Small Jewellers Are Unhappy

Under the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), for FY 2025-26, Indian jewellers are allowed to import gold from the UAE at a discount of one percentage point on the import duty, ie., at 8 per cent duty, against the prevalent rate of 9 per cent.

This discount is huge in monetary terms, as the volumes are large. According to sources, jewellers were allocated a quota of 180 tonnes of gold imported from the UAE recently.  

Jewellers, scheduled commercial banks and the International Bullion Exchange (at GIFT City) have to apply under the Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) to the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), which allocates the gold to the applicants.

According to industry sources, nearly 1,500 applicants, out of the close to 3,000 total, were allotted the gold. Later, it was discovered that jewellers with an annual turnover of Rs 25 crore or above got the allocations, while those with lower turnover were left out. 

Why Small Jewellers Are Angry

Small jewellers are protesting against the inclusion of this non-transparent eligibility criterion.

“The turnover criteria were in force until 2022. However, it was removed in 2023. This made small jewellers eligible for the quota. A lot of them have applied for allotment since then, even in 2025. However, we discovered that jewellers with a turnover of Rs 25 crore or more were allotted gold at concessional import duty. We demand that every applicant be allocated gold irrespective of the turnover,” said Jigar Soni, president of the Jewellers Association of Ahmedabad (JAA).

He told The Secretariat that despite raising the issue with the DGFT, there is no reply from the government authorities. Each applicant had to pay an application fee of Rs 1 lakh. If the turnover criteria had been mentioned well in advance, smaller jewellers would not have applied at all, he said. 

According to sources, a committee of DGFT noted that the applicants, put together, had sought more than 25 times the available quota of gold. The number of applications saw a 253 per cent rise YoY, following which, scheduled commercial banks and jewellers with an annual turnover of less than Rs 25 crore were not considered for the allotment.

Demand For Transparent Eligibility Criteria

Close to 1,500 who were considered for allotment got gold between 35 kg and 2,500 kg, depending on their consumption in the previous years. 

Talking to The Secretariat, Rajesh Rokde, the chairman of the All India Gems and Jewellery Domestic Council, said the industry wants the government to rethink its decision and allocate gold to all applicants.

“A significant number of applicants are from the MSME sector. The current approach has effectively deprived MSMEs of a level playing field, undermining the very objective of the inclusive trade facilitation envisioned under the India-UAE CEPA,” he remarked.