Even as the US-based multi-brand retail chain giant Walmart is firming up its India plans, the world’s largest online retail company Amazon.com has decided to send its top brass to the country to lobby for policy changes that would allow it entry.
The revised foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in retail announced in September last year blocked foreign investments in e-commerce while allowing up to 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail stores and 100 per cent FDI in single-brand retail.
Paul Misner, Vice-President, Global Public Policy, Amazon.com, will lead a team of officials to New Delhi next week to discuss with policy-makers the possibility of re-working the policy to allow FDI in e-commerce.
The US-based online seller of books and electronic items had been eyeing the Indian e-commerce market, estimated at about $2 billion, for long and was hopeful that the FDI policy relaxation in retail will allow it entry. “Amazon was disappointed that the foreign investment policy liberalisation for retail announced last year did not include e-commerce. It is expected to lobby hard for a policy change,” the official said.
Misner is scheduled to meet Commerce & Industry Minister Anand Sharma early next week, a Department of Industrial and Policy Promotion official told Business Line .
“The Government may look at coming out with a separate policy paper on FDI in e-commerce. However, nothing concrete has happened in the area yet” the DIPP official said.
Amazon.com, the world’s largest on-line retailer, had launched Junglee.com — an online shopping service — in India last year that enabled buyers to compare various products and their prices as listed on other e-commerce Web sites in India.
“This can be seen as a strategy applied by the company to make its presence felt amongst online shoppers in India before it is allowed to enter the country,” another official said.