Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to India in January 2020, according to a report by The Eonomic Times.
During his visit, Bezos is likely to raise concerns over prevailing business environment and ecommerce policy for foreign companies in India. The Seattle-based online retail is said to be worried about the changing e-commerce rules in the country.
The Amazon founder is expected to highlight that it is generating jobs in India and empowering SMEs and other small businesses, people aware of the development told the newspaper.
In India, a group of small traders have been protesting against foreign-funded e-commerce companies for giving deep discounts. They claim that such discounts led to slump in traditional retail business during Diwali. Traders have accused Flipkart and Amazon of “unfair business practices” and violation of foreign direct investment rules. As a result, the government has been stepping up its scrutiny of ecommerce companies over their compliance with India’s foreign direct investment (FDI) laws for e-commerce marketplaces.
On November 18, Bezos said Amazon is doing “extremely well” in India and the business is growing rapidly. He also expressed hoped for regulatory stability in the country.
"Regulatory stability is the thing that we would always hope for India. Whatever the regulations are ... they are stable in time and that's one of the things we're hoping will now be true. We'll see," Bezos said.
The US-based Amazon is pumping in over Rs 4,400 crore (more than USD 600 million) in its various units in India including marketplace and food retail to provide them more ammunition to compete against arch-rival Flipkart. Bezos had committed investment worth $5 billion in the Indian market in 2016.
Amazon, which is locked in a battle against Flipkart, had registered cumulative losses of over Rs 7,000 crore across various units in 2018-19.
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