The 17-member panel, chaired by a senior commerce department official, will also deliberate allowing sales from SEZ units to the domestic area on a duty-foregone basis, allowing rupee-denominated payments for services supplied by SEZ units to domestic entities, and enabling them to undertake job work for firms in the domestic area without linking it to exports, said an official.
The commerce and industry has sought industry inputs on whether the industry would be willing to pay to SEZs in foreign exchange for reverse job work, or if they would demand payment in Indian rupees. The committee was setup in February after the Budget 2026-27 announcement of a special one-time relief measure allowing eligible SEZ manufacturing units to sell a prescribed proportion of their output in the Domestic Tariff Area at concessional duty rates instead of standard customs duties.
“Discussions on reforms in the SEZs and free trade warehousing zones and ease of doing business issues would be held,” the official said.
International best practices missing in Indian SEZs and changes in the SEZ Act are other issues likely to be taken up at the stakeholder consultation.
Exports from the operational SEZs totaled over Rs 11.7 lakh crore in 2025-26 (till December, 2025), a 32.02% increase from the corresponding period in 2024-25.