The Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC), issued a circular implementing changes in the gem and jewellery sector introducing several simplifications for export oriented units (EOUs). This was first brought about in the Annual Supplement to the Foreign Trade Policy effective from April 1st, 2006. It extends the facility of importing goods without payment of duty on the basis of pre-authenticated procurement certificates to such units which have physical export turnover of Rs.15 crore and above with a clean track record.%%Earlier, the procurement certificate was required to be obtained from the jurisdictional office of customs and central excise. Previously, EOUs exported goods under the Shipping Bill procedure, which required the unit to get a shipping bill number by visiting the jurisdictional customs office. This procedure has been simplified and the CBEC has permitted the units to use the shipping bill with a running serial number beginning from the first day of the financial year. In order to redress the reported problems regarding delays in declaring a warehousing station, a time bound requirement has now been put in place.%%Under the new procedure, a site verification report has to be given within seven days by the jurisdictional superintendent to his superiors. The new guidelines require the entire procedure of verification to be completed in less than 30 days. Some other procedures and requirements concerning EOUs have already been relaxed by issue of two notifications on May 17th, 2006, under the Customs and Central Excise Act. Under these notifications, some important changes introduced are the permission to exporters to supply spares and components to the original buyer at any time within the warranty period of the exported articles. EOUs are now permitted to obtain duty-free export promotion materials like brochures, literature, pamphlets etc. for a value up to 1.5% of their export turnover during the previous year.%%All EOUs have now been permitted to remove capital goods from their unit for test, repair etc. within the country without requiring any prior permission of the customs and central excise officers. EOUs have been permitted to effect inter-unit transfer of manufactured goods without prior permission. For gems and jewellery exporters, the units are now allowed to export cut and polished, precious and semi-precious stones for treatment abroad. They can re-import such stones upon payment of duty on the fair cost of treatment and cost of materials used in such treatment. The circular also provides a detailed explanation of the aforementioned changes brought about by the two notifications.