ED signs MoU with DGFT for sharing forex realisation data

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate today signed an agreement with the Commerce Ministry for sharing of foreign exchange realisation data, a move that is expected to increase transparency and reduce human interface.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Rajan Katoch, Director, Enforcement, Ministry of Finance and Anup K Pujari, Director General of Foreign Trade, in the presence of Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and other senior officials.

"Data sharing with government departments would increase transparency, reduce the human interface and improve the ease of doing business in India," Sharma told reporters here.

Foreign exchange realisation data, also called as eBRC, is a significant step in reducing the transaction cost of exporters.

Bank Realisation Certificate (BRC) is required for discharge of export obligation and claiming of incentives under Foreign Trade Policy. BRC is also used by state government departments for refund of VAT.

In addition, it is an important economic indicator as it quantifies transaction level export earnings.

Earlier, the banks used to issue physical copy of BRC to exporters and no data analysis was possible, Pujari said.

"The process for BRC issuance and subsequent utilisation were largely manual and department centric. The exporters suffered most as they had to run to banks and government departments for claiming benefits," he said.

The e-BRC project enables banks to upload foreign exchange realisation information related to merchandise goods exports on to the DGFT server under a secured protocol.

Pujari said so far 90 banks operating in India, including foreign banks and cooperative banks, have uploaded more than 75 lakh e-BRCs on to the department's server.

"This initiative has reduced the cost of transaction for exporters by eliminating their interface with bank (for issuance of BRC purposes) and enhanced the productivity of banks and DGFT," he added.

Further, he informed that at the state level, commercial tax departments of Maharashtra, Delhi, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Chhattisgarh have signed MoU with DGFT for receiving e-BRC data for VAT refund purposes.

"Many other states are in the process of signing such agreements. DGFT is in talks with RBI for expanding the coverage of this data for setting up an efficient mechanism for foreign exchange monitoring," he said.