A. P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 122 dated June 27, 2013

Presently,

a. Import of gold on consignment basis by banks, nominated agencies / premier / star trading houses is permitted only to meet the genuine needs of the exporters of gold jewellery.

b. All Letters of Credit (LC) to be opened by Nominated Banks / Agencies for import of gold under all categories can only be on 100% cash margin basis and imports of gold will necessarily have to be on Documents against Payment (DP) basis. Thus, import of gold on Documents against Acceptance (DA) basis is not permitted.

This circular clarifies that Banks are required to ensure that credit in any form or name is not enabled for import of gold by the nominated agencies, etc. Import of gold on loan basis by banks & nominated agencies is permitted only for on-lending to exporters of jewellery as the restrictions of non-availing of credit for import of gold is not applicable to them.

Master Circulars dated July 1, 2013

RBI has issued 15 Master Circulars. These Master Circulars consolidate the existing instructions on the subject at one place. These Master Circulars are being issued with a sunset clause of one year. They will stand withdrawn on 1st July, 2014 and be replaced with an updated Master Circular on the subject.