Jewellery exporters meet FM to discuss industry challenges

A jewellery exporters' delegation today met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi and discussed a number of critical issues facing the gems and jewellery industry and gave suggestions to improve them.
Some of the issues were related to taxation, chairman of Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), Praveenshankar Pandya, said.
"We asked the Finance Minister to take measures that create certainty regarding tax provisions and reduce the quantum of tax-related litigation," he added.
GJEPC chairman pointed out that uncertainty regarding tax laws in the country led to increased litigation and ultimately reduced ease of doing business here. "As a result, FDI flows to other competing countries," he said.

The delegation also requested introduction of Special Turnover Tax regime for the diamond industry with 0.75 per cent tax on sales turnover (calculating the net income as 2.5 per cent of the turnover).
"This will be along the lines of the tax regimes prevalent in other diamond-trading nations like Belgium and Israel," Pandya said adding that such approach will be tax neutral and encourage companies in Belgium and Dubai, especially those run by NRIs to shift their manufacturing units to India, which is currently in China.

"By attracting international manufacturing business to India (from Belgium, Israel and Dubai), we can tap additional market share of approximately around USD 20 billion (in FY 2018-19) thereby helping the government garner more tax collection in the long run," Pandya said.

He said this would help create jobs for 1.56 million Indians (by 2018-19) in the gems and jewellery sector while preserving skill and talent of our labour force.
This will also help in tackling trade deficit and current account deficit through higher exports, he added.
The GJEPC chairman also urged the government to permit the sale of rough diamonds at the SNZ in Mumbai by implementing a 0.25 per cent tax on sales turnover achieved at SNZ by foreign mining companies.
This, he pointed out, would generate a new area of tax collection by shifting such sales from Belgium, Israel and Dubai.