Govt to ease restrictions on film imports

BS Economy Bureau

The government has decided to ease the restrictions on the import of films, which continued to be on the negative list of items even after the removal of the quantitative restrictions in April last year.

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade has framed a policy for the import of films in the form of video tape, compact disc, laser disc and digital video disc and has removed the licensing requirements.

Importer of the films, however, have to comply with the provisions of the Indian laws governing the distribution and the exhibition of films, including the requirement of obtaining a certificate of public exhibition prescribed under the Cinematograph Act, 1952.

The government has also decided to prohibit the import of unauthorised and pirated films.

The policy further stipulates that the import of foreign reprints of Indian films will not be permitted without the prior permission of the information & broadcasting ministry. The ministry can, however, relax or waive the conditions on the import of foreign reprints.

While dismantling the QRs on the remaining 715 items in the Exim Policy for the current fiscal, the government had continued with the QRs Article XX and XXI of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade on 600 items including films, audio tapes, safety matches, some agricultural products, chemicals, insect repellents in some forms, industrial waste, defence goods, medicines and fertilisers.

Since then, the QRs on some items have been lifted with films being the latest.

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