CAIT implores government to not give in to big businesses on FDI policy

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jan 4, 2019

On January 3, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) implored the government to remain steadfast with its foreign direct investment (FDI) policy as it fears pressure from big businesses. 

On Thursday, a delegation of CAIT wrote to the minister of commerce, Suresh Prabhu, to ask that he resists coercion over the new FDI policy released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) at the end of 2018. CAIT believes that organisations such as the US India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) are being pressured to speak out against the policy by, large foreign-owned e-commerce platforms such as Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart, which are expected to be affected the most by the policy.

"We strongly oppose such tactics and method of coercion and remain as a strong support to the government in its bid to clean the e-commerce market from unfair and unethical business practices," CAIT wrote to Prabhu as reported by the Press Trust of India.

CAIT asked Prabhu not to bring in any changes to the FDI policy that is scheduled for implementation on February 2. The organisation has commended the policy as it aims to create a more level playing field in the online market and help smaller sellers.

The CAIT delegation was led by Praveen Khandelwal who assured that he would “strongly and stoutly” oppose any change to the policy. CAIT has also gone further and demanded an e-commerce regulatory body and policy to be created to regulate the sector and improve compliance, an issue in the industry. 

Khandelwal reported that Prabhu told CAIT that the government is working on the draft e-commerce policy and that it will work to ensure a level playing field for online traders.