New Delhi: The India–UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will come into force on July 15, providing duty-free access for 99 per cent of India’s exports to the United Kingdom, the Finance Ministry has notified.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) issued rules that define how a product qualifies as originating in India or the UK. A good will be treated as originating if it is wholly obtained in one country, produced entirely from originating materials, or manufactured using non-originating inputs while meeting the product-specific origin criteria set out in the agreement.
The notified rules — titled the Customs Tariff (Determination of Origin of Goods under Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between India and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Rules, 2026 — also permit cumulative origin treatment, allowing inputs originating in one partner to be treated as originating when used in further production in the other.
Simple or minimal operations such as repackaging, relabelling, washing, sorting, polishing and simple assembly will not confer originating status. Customs authorities are empowered to verify origin claims and refuse preferential tariff treatment where conditions are not met. The rules also allow importers who miss claiming tariff benefits at import time a mechanism to seek entitlement later.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said the CETA will deepen cooperation across trade, investment, technology and innovation, and urged Indian firms in London to seize new opportunities under the pact to build sustained business ties.
(Inputs from IANS)