Imported gold to require BSTI certification  

The government will make the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) certificate mandatory for imported gold to determine its quality.

The quality of gold must be verified at the time of entering the country.

However, as BSTI does not have this capability, the quality of gold can be checked with any recognised institution by the standards testing authorities.

Officials from different government agencies and business people concerned held a meeting at the commerce ministry on Tuesday on the occasion of amending the Gold Policy 2018.

At this meeting, all the parties agreed, in principle, on the issue of testing the quality of imported gold.

According to the meeting sources, no work is being done yet to verify and certify the quality of gold bars.

According to businesspeople, the government issued gold import licences to 19 companies in November last year.

But these companies stopped importing gold for eight months because of tariff complications.

Later, the complications were removed but new problems were created with quality verification and certification.

Gold importers want BSTI to work for quality verification and certification.

However, at the meeting, it was decided that the work of quality verification would be done through organisations recognised by BSTI.

A company official, who did not want to be named, said, "Traders have demanded that the quality be checked by BSTI. But BSTI does not have the capacity in this regard."

"That is why it was decided in principle that the verifications will be done by BSTI recognised institutions," he said.

On 17 November, the Bangladesh Jewellers' Association (Bajus) gave a letter to the commerce ministry highlighting the complexities over gold quality verification and certification.

In the letter, Bajus said that BSTI has been named as the quality verification and certification body in Article 10.0 of the Gold Policy 2018.

Bajus requested that the commerce ministry take effective steps to overcome the current complications considering the issue seriously to facilitate the development of the domestic gold industry and export trade.

The Bangladesh Bank also has conditions regarding the quality of gold imports.

But there is a problem in unloading imported gold as there is no quality control system for imported gold.

The Bangladesh Bank has written to BSTI to take initiative in this regard.

The 34th council meeting of BSTI approved the inclusion of the gold product under the compulsory certification marks (CM) licence.

It will be a mandatory product after the issuance of a statutory regulatory order (SRO).

Bajus General Secretary Dilip Kumar Agarwala said, "Amendments are being made in some places. In the meantime, there has been a detailed discussion on issuing certificates and bond facilities."

Sources said the bond facility was mentioned earlier to encourage gold jewelry exports. The government will work to make it easier.

According to meeting sources, the process loss occurs while making ornaments with imported gold bars.

Determining a standard amount of this process loss was also discussed at the meeting.

The commerce ministry has sought feedback from traders on the process loss within three days.