In the first quarter of 2022, Vietnam’s export turnover to India reached 1.92 billion USD, up 12.6% compared to the last year.
According to the Trade Promotion Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade), in the past time, bilateral trade cooperation between Vietnam and India increased rapidly from 200 million USD (in 2000) to over 13 billion USD (in 2021).
Moving into the first quarter of 2022, Vietnam’s export turnover to India reached 1.92 billion USD, up 12.6% compared to the same period last year. On the opposite, Vietnam’s imports from India reached 2.05 billion USD. The bilateral trade turnover target reached 15 billion USD this year.
Dragon fruit is one of the Vietnamese products that has many advantages to promote exports to India in the coming time.
Speaking at the Vietnam-India Trade Promotion and Business Cooperation Online Trade Conference 2022 on April 12, Mr. Le Hoang Tai, Deputy Director of the Trade Promotion Department, said that India is one of the countries with the highest GDP growth rate in the world.
The Indian population is about 1.4 billion people with a large market capacity, creating many opportunities for enterprises in many countries, including Vietnam. Like other countries, India’s economy is also strongly impacted by the Covid-19 but gradually recovered in 2021 and 2022.
“Currently both India and Vietnam are coming out of the shadow of Covid-19 and focusing on economic recovery. This is a golden moment to pay attention to promote effective cooperation,” Mr. Tai said.
Notably, in the field of agriculture, Vietnam can promote the export of dragon fruit and spices such as cinnamon, star anise, pepper, etc to India.
Indian enterprises want to invest in the production of value-added agricultural products in Vietnam to export back to the Indian market due to the very high demand for processed food in India. Therefore, the two countries still have plenty of room for investment and trade cooperation in agricultural products as well as mutual support in processing technology.
According to Mr. T.K.Pandey, Director of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Indian market is strongly open when India has just signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and in 2022 can sign with some other countries such as the UK, EU, Canada, and Gulf countries community.
The flow of exports to the Indian market has increased greatly over the years. Therefore, to control the quality of goods and ensure fairness in the market, the Government of India has issued Customs Rules (managing rules of origin according to FTA-CAROTAR 2020). This is also what enterprises need to pay special attention to when dealing with this market.
Mr. Yogesh Gaba, the GST expert, shared: To import goods into the Indian market, Indian importers must provide detailed country of origin information to Indian authorities for verification procedures as needed.
CAROTAR 2020 also requires exporters to ensure that they meet the prescribed origin criteria such as the requirements on the processing rate, localization of products in the exporting country must meet the requirement of 35% or more. Importing enterprises must also perform basic due diligence before importing such goods.
If the verification procedure has not been completed, the importing enterprise wishing to pass the shipment will have to set a guaranteed amount equal to the difference between the normal tax and the preferential tax.
Under Rule 3, CAROTAR 2020, to enjoy the preferential tariff rate under the FTA, at the time of submitting the import application, the importer or agent must specify on the Bill of Lading and the Bill of Entry the origin of the goods; specify in the entry invoice the corresponding tariff notice for each item; present the certificate of origin for each item for which the preferential tariff rate is requested; enter the details of the certificate of origin in the bill of lading.
Mr. Yogesh Gaba also noted that if the certificate of origin was not presented at the time of making the customs declaration, tariff preferences would not apply at that time. However, the importer may add this document at a certain time to benefit from the preferential tariff.