export-controls 06 February 2020

India announces defence export control changes

India’s Ministry of Defence has published changes to export control regulations intended to benefit the country’s indigenous defence industry.

Amongst the measures are included: ‘

Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (SCOMET) Category 6 titled “Munitions List” that was hitherto “Reserved” has been populated and Military Stores list notified vide Notification No.115(RE-2013)/2009-2014 dated 13th March 2015 stands rescinded.
The Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) vide Public Notice No. 4/2015-20 dated 24th April, 2017, notified Department of Defence Production (DDP) as the Licensing Authority for export items in Category 6 of SCOMET. The export of items specified in Category 6 (Munitions List) except those covered under Notes 2 & 3 of Commodity Identification Note (CIN) of the SCOMET is now governed by the Standard Operating Procedure issued by the Department of Defence Production (DDP), Ministry of Defence.
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the export of munitions list items has been simplified and placed on the website of the DDP.
A completely end-to-end online portal for receiving and processing authorisation permission has been developed. The applications submitted on this portal are digitally signed and the authorization issued is also digitally signed.
The government has notified the Open General Export License (OGEL) – a onetime export license, which permits the industry to export specified items to specified destinations, enumerated in the OGEL, without seeking export authorization during the validity of the OGEL.’

For further analysis of these changes and their significance, please see the forthcoming issue of WorldECR.