The Directorate General of Foreign Trade vide its notification dated 24th January 2022, has extended the transition period for mandatory filing of applications for Non-Preferential Certificate of Origin through the e-CoO Platform till 31st March 2022. The existing systems for submitting and processing non-preferential CoO applications in manual/ paper mode is permitted for the stated time period and the electronic system is not being made mandatory.
It is informed that feedbacks and suggestions for further ease of operations, received from exporters and issuing agencies are duly being taken into consideration. Various enhancements rolled out or proposed to be rolled out are Bulk upload of line items from file ( to save efforts on keying-in each item), Creation of duplicate/cloned application from an existing application (to save efforts on repetitive entries), E-Wallet facility for bulk payments of user charges (to avoid payment gateway interaction in each CoO submission) and Aadhaar e-sign facility for authentication( in-lieu of Digital Signature Certificates).
Exporters and Issuing Agencies already on boarded are advised to make maximum use of the e-CoO platform for process familiarisation and ease of operations. The issuing agencies are also advised to issue suitable advisories to the members/exporters to register and familiarise with the e-CoO platform before the stated timelines.
Further the agencies are required to ensure they are onboarded before 31st March 2022, failing which the agencies shall be de-notified.
