Single bank account for exporters/importers from April 1

New Delhi, Jan 16 (UNI) Indian exporters and importers will be able to do business through a single bank account in the country from April one.

Announcing this here today, the Department of Commerce said exporters and importers will need to maintain only one core-banking enabled account at national level for transactions with any of the stakeholders for trade.

Such stakeholders would include customs, Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), sea ports, airports and banks. All the concerned government agencies have been advised to facilitate e-payment using single core-banking enabled bank account of exporters and importers in the country with effect from April 1, 2008, the commerce department said in a statement.

Exporters and importers will declare to all the agencies their one bank account in any core-banking enabled branch anywhere in India for all payments and receipts, including drawback.

The department said it is facilitating 'eTrade' among all trade regulatory and facilitating agencies like customs, DGFT, sea ports, airports, container corporation (CONCOR) and banks, to provide 24X7 electronic delivery of efficient service to exporters and importers.

Following a series of meetings, the decision was taken on December 20,2007, in a final meeting convened by Commerce Secretary G K Pillai, the statement added.

Currently, exporters and importers have to maintain multiple bank accounts at their head offices, sea and airports to handle their export-import transactions.

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