Sitharaman to chair meet on FDI in e-retail

Government will hold a meeting of all stakeholders including industry bodies and firms such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon tomorrow to deliberate on foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce retailing.
The meeting would be chaired by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, an official said.
Representatives from associations including Nasscom would also attend the meeting, officials said.
At present, 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) is allowed only in business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce and not in retail segment.
Global retail giants like Amazon and the domestic industry want the government to relax the foreign investment norms in the e-commerce space.

Issues which could come up for discussions include pros and cons of permitting foreign players in the e-commerce sector, allowing multi-national firms to do e-commerce retailing, an industry source said.

They said liberalising the policy in the sector would help in boosting domestic manufacturing particularly for MSME entrepreneurs and also attract investments.
However, on the flip side it may affect the small brick and mortar shops as big companies may go for predatory pricing, they added.
Global e-commerce players are looking at India because the country is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in Asia-Pacific along with China. Rise in internet penetration, adoption of smartphones and lower data rates are completely changing the way India shops.

As per estimates, the sector's market size in the country is at around USD 5 billion annually. Analysts say online shopping space is expanding at a massive rate.
Meanwhile, pressure is also mounting on India for relaxing foreign direct investment norms in the e-commerce sector at the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations.