India’s trade minister isn’t impressed with Amazon’s new $1 billion investment in the country.
A day after Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos announced that his company is pumping in an additional $1 billion into its India operations, making the total local investment to date to $6.5 billion, the nation’s trade minister Piyush Goyal said Amazon’s investment was not a big favor to India. “They may have put in a billion dollars but then if they make a loss of a billion dollars every year then they jolly well have to finance that billion dollars,” Goyal said in a conference Thursday organized by think tank ORF in New Delhi. “So it’s not as if they are doing a great favor to India when they invest a billion dollars.” The remark from the Indian minister comes days after India’s antitrust watchdog announced a probe into Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart’s alleged predatory practices. Bezos, who is in India this week, has sought to meet with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but his request has not been approved yet, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Goyal reiterated that foreign e-commerce players would have to abide by the local law if they want to continue to operate in the nation. He said the watchdog’s allegations were “an area of concern for every Indian.” More to follow…