Special measures to facilitate MSME for AEO T1 & T2 accreditation - CBEC's Customs Manual 2023 - Customs

23. Special measures to facilitate MSME for AEO T1 T2 accreditation: 23.1 The Board has decided to facilitate MSMEs by further relaxing the current accreditation process and reducing the compliance burden for their AEO accreditation. The procedural modifications/relaxations for AEO accreditation of MSMEs are as under: (i) The eligibility requirement of handling a minimum of 25 documents during the last financial year has been relaxed to 10 documents, subject to handling at least 5 documents in each half- year period of the preceding financial year (Ref.: Para 3.1.7 of the Master Circular). (ii) The requirement for the applicant to have business activities for at least three financial years preceding the date of application has been relaxed to two financial years. (Ref.: Para 3.1.6 of the Master Circular). (iii) The qualifying period for legal and financial compliance has been reduced from the last three financial years to the last two financial years . (Ref.: Paras 3.2 3.4 of the Master Circular). (iv) For AEO TI and T2 accreditation, the present annexures i.e., Annexure A, B, C, D, E.1-E.4 have been supplanted with two annexures viz. MSME Annexure | and 2. Similar rationalized annexures | and 2 are presently being utilized for AEO TI accreditation only in accordance with the CBIC Circular No. 26/2018-Customs dated 10.08.2018. (v) For AEO 72 certification, the present annexures i.e., Annexure E.5.1-E.5.7 for physical verification have been rationalized to a single annexure viz. MSME Annexure 3. The rationalization has been carried out to ensure that the security requirements for an MSME are objective and cover the minimum verifiable security criteria. (Ref.: Para 3.5 of the Master Circular). (vi) The time limit for processing of MSME AEO T1 AEO T2 application has been reduced to fifteen working days (presently one month) and three months (presently six months) respectively after the submission of complete documents for priority processing by customs zones. (vii) The benefit of relaxation in furnishing of Bank Guarantee for AEOs has been further relaxed to 25% from 50% and 10% from 25% of that required to be furnished by an importer/exporter who is not an AEO certificate holder, for MSME AEO T1 and MSME AEO T2 entities respectively (Ref.: Para 3.5 of the Master Circular). 23.2 The aforestated relaxations shall apply only to an applicant who has a valid MSME certificate from the line-Ministry. Further, the approved MSME must ensure their continuous MSME status during the validity of its AEO certification, if granted. [Refer Circular No.54/2020-Customs dated 15.12.2020]