Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said that a complete overhaul of the customs system will be her next major reform priority as part of wider efforts to streamline the economy.

Speaking at the HT Leadership Summit, she said the customs framework needs significant simplification and greater clarity. “We need to make them more transparent,” she said, stressing the need to ease compliance for businesses.

“There are quite a few things to do but what’s on the card — and it’s not a secret that I'm letting out before the budget — is the complete overhaul of the customs area. We need to have customs a lot more simplified for people to feel that it is not too tiresome, cumbersome for them to comply with the expectations and the rules, to make it more transparent,” she said.

Sithara

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