India refuses to join e-commerce talks at WTO, says rules to hurt country

The government believes the push for initiating negotiations on substantive obligations related to e-commerce will oblige India to permanently accept the current moratorium on imposing customs duties

India will not join the talks on e-commerce at the World Trade Organization (WTO), with New Delhi pushing the draft e-commerce policy back home. This comes at a time when richer nations are batting for global rules for the sector. Discussions on the rules are set to start by March. 

“The idea is to create guidelines that will serve as the basis of any later international agreement on e-commerce, which will favour richer nations owing to the nature of the developed market systems and penetration by online firms in the retail space,” a commerce department official said.

The draft, brought out on