New online certification system puts exporters in a fix

Many reporting outages on the DGFT portal

After crossing $30 billion for seven successive months, India’s merchandise exports have hit a home-grown stumbling block in the first 10 days of this month — a new system mandating online issuance of Certificates of Origin (CoO) for every outbound consignment from November 1 that has put exporters in a tizzy.

Several small exporters are facing challenges in registering on to the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) portal which requires high-quality digital signature certificates, with many reporting outages on the portal that was earlier used only .

“For the last four days, we have been trying to register on the platform and get a CoO issued for a consignment,” said a Mumbai-based exporter, adding that the process used to take much less time earlier. “This used to take an hour earlier through the State’s industry chamber and other agencies that were allowed to issue certificates,” he said, raising concerns that his shipment may even reach the destination port before the certificate is generated.