Mar. 17 – The list of operations that can be carried out independently by special economic zone authorities has been expanded to include establishing space for banking and warehousing services.

Previously SEZ developers were required to get approval for the latter. “It has been decided to further expand the list of default authorized operations…the development commissioners /unit approval committees may allow the developer/approved co-developers duty-free goods and services for these default authorized operations,” said the commerce ministry in statement.

The ministry added: “The approval committees while approving goods and services for such default operations may look into the actual requirement of SEZs for such operations.”

The ministry is also allowing trading and warehousing units found in free trade warehousing zones to have two-way transactions with the Indian market in addition to their 100 percent tax exemption benefit on income for the first five years and 50 percent tax exemption for five years after that.