No. CLE-HO/POL/FTP/14-15
April 8, 2015

Members of the Council

Sub: Merchandising Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) – Requirement of Declaration of Intent in Shipping Bills – reg.

Dear Member

This is in continuation to our earlier two circulars dated April 2, 2015 giving highlights of the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20. In these circulars, we had mentioned about the introduction of Merchandising Exports from India (MEIS) Scheme in Chapter 3 of Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20 w.e.f. April 1, 2015 in place of earlier schemes like Focus Product Scheme, Market Linked Focus Product Scheme, Focus Market Scheme etc..

As per Chapter 3.14 of Handbook of Procedure of FTP 2015-20 (given below), for all the Exports under all the schemes including DBK, the Declaration has to made in the Shipping Bill to be eligible to avail the benefit of the scheme, the same is as follows.

3.14 Declaration of Intent on shipping bills for claiming rewards under MEIS including export of goods through courier or foreign post offices using e-Commerce.
(a) Export shipments filed under all categories of the Shipping Bills would need the following declaration on the Shipping Bills in order to be eligible for claiming rewards under MEIS: “ We intend to claim rewards under Merchandise Exports From India Scheme (MEIS)”. Such declaration shall be required even for export shipments under any of the schemes of Chapter 4 (including drawback), Chapter 5 or Chapter 6 of FTP. In the case of shipping bills (other than free shipping bills), such declaration of intent shall be mandatory with effect from 1st June 2015.

(b) Whenever there is a decision during the financial year to include any new product/goods or new markets then to avail such rewards:
(i) For exports of such products/goods, to such markets, a grace period of one month from the date of notification/public notice will be allowed for making this declaration of intent.
(ii) After the grace period of one month, all exports (of such products/goods or to such markets) would have to include the declaration of intent on all categories of shipping bills.
(iii) For exports made prior to date of notification/public notice of products/markets, such a declaration would not be required since such exports would have already taken place.

Members may note the above

With regards

R. Ramesh Kumar
Executive Director
COUNCIL FOR LEATHER EXPORTS