On May 13 the government raised the import tariff of gold and silver from 6% to 15% and platinum from 6.4% to 15.4 %. The increase would help conserve foreign exchange reserves which are strained due to higher prices of oil and fertilisers due to the West Asia conflict. Because of the steep increase in import duty gold and silver have lost their sheen and the prices have increased beyond the reach of the common citizens. In earlier days there was no limit on gold imports under the Advanced Authorisation (AA) scheme, but the next day a limit of 100 kg was imposed on gold imports. The AA scheme allows jewellery exporters to enjoy duty-free import of raw or input materials such as fuel, oil, packaging materials and catalysts that are used to produce export products. Just imagine that prior to the limit set by AA how many tonnes of raw materials might have been imported at no-cost which helped the manufacturers to rake in the money while exporting their finished product. This is injustice to those involved in the export of non-jewellery products.
