Figure 1: No Copyright Infringement Intended

Context:

• The Centre has suspended till January 31 a mandatory obligation imposed on exporters from November 1 to obtain online Certificates of Origin (CoO) for every outbound consignment. 

About Online Certificates of Origin :

• It was put in place in late 2019 for exports to countries with whom India had a preferential trade pact.
• It was expanded to cover all merchandise exports from November.
• It was initiated by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

Benefits of it:

• This online facility provides ‘ease of doing business’ to the exporting community
• It gives a verifiable authentication mechanism to the partner countries to confirm the genuineness of the issued CoOs through a QR code which adds credibility to the issued e-CoO.

Reasons for suspension:

• Several exporters across States had reported difficulties in registering on the e-CoO platform on the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) portal with the stipulated high-quality digital signature certificates and obtaining the certificates for their shipments. 
• customs house agents had not been able to share data on exporters’ behalf, as the DGFT had not shared the API (Application Programming Interface) for the new platform.

Indian Exports:

• India’s monthly merchandise exports have crossed $30 billion for seven months in a row
• It is largely on course to reach the government’s target of a record $400 billion in 2021-22.

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