CHENNAI: Providing significant relief to personal protective equipment (PPE) manufacturers in India, the Centre on Tuesday removed all restrictions on the export of PPE medical coveralls and all varieties of masks, except N95 masks.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) through a notification amended export policy of 2/3 ply surgical masks, medical coveralls of all classes and categories from “restricted” to “free” category, and stated that beginning now, all these items are freely exportable.
The Centre had removed the prohibition on the export of medical coveralls for Covid-19 last month, allowing a quota of up to 50 lakh units to be exported every month against licences issued by the government. However, India’s PPE manufacturers and the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) had urged the Centre to lift restrictions on exports on PPE coveralls since they were losing a significant amount of the export business to neighbouring countries.
The Council had claimed that manufacturers of PPE coveralls, who invested crores in PPE manufacturing equipment, were facing difficulties since prices were crashing due to oversupply. A Sakthivel, chairman of AEPC welcomed the move.
“Our longstanding demand is now fulfilled and many exporters, who faced a lot of issues in customs, have had their problems resolved now. PPE exporters can book the orders freely from their buyers,” he said.
However, the council also wants curbs on N95 masks export removed.
“The notification says 50 lakh pieces per month can be exported... the restriction should be removed as we are manufacturing much more than the domestic need and we can boost our exports easily,” added Sakthivel.