Chinese online fashion retail giant Shein’s re-entry into India through a licensing agreement with Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) will be limited in scope, as it will be a technology and knowledge partner with no equity investments. But it will continue to have an app in its name, which will be owned solely by the Indian partner, said government officials.

The government is hopeful that Shein’s technology and expertise shared with RRVL will help integrate a network of over 25,000 MSMES, creating a potential export opportunity of approximately ₹50,000 crore from India, even if only 25 per cent of the existing global demand of Shein is sourced from the country, the official added.

“Shein will licence its technology and trademark to be used by RRVL and also develop an indigenous e-commerce retail platform  for Indian consumers to avail Shein-branded products. The operations will be run by an Indian company 100 per cent owned by RRVL,” the official told businessline.

There will be absolutely no equity investments by Shein in the venture, and neither will any payment commitment be made to the company, the official added. Any payments made will be only from profit of the Indian company, he said.

Two years ago, Shein’s app was banned in India, together with 58 other apps, following a border skirmish with China that significantly affected bilateral ties. In an official statement, the government said 54 apps were banned due to security concerns as they allegedly obtained various critical permissions and collected sensitive user data.

Shein’s entry this time is at a different level, as all ownership rights vest on the Indian partner, and there are no security threats whatsoever, the official explained.

While RRVL will use Shein’s licenced  technology platform to make an app, which is likely to be named `Shein India’, it will be walled off from Shein’s main global app, he added.

As a safeguard measure against data leaks, not only will ownership and control of the platform  always remain with RRVL’s subsidiary, a 100 per cent Indian company, the platform and servers will be hosted exclusively within India and there will be no customer data transfer outside the country.

“Shein will not have any access to or rights over such data,” the official said.

At a later stage, if some investments are brought in by Shein, the Press Note 3 restrictions applied on countries sharing land borders with India will apply on it too, he specified.

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