Sitharaman warns against misusing e-commerce

E-commerce should not be used as a “backdoor entry for multi-brand retail,” Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday.

Sitharaman, who is on a two-day visit to London to promote investment in India and the Make in India campaign, told a group of journalists that while the Government “was not pronouncing any policy on e-commerce,” it had made its stance clear. “We are conscious that e-commerce should not become a backdoor entry for multi-brand retail,” she said. “Post the Flipkart one-day issue a lot of inputs have come from concerned citizens, retailers, even from consumers about certain practices.”

Last week Sitharaman was forced to clarify the Government’s stance on e-commerce, and on Flipkart in particular, following reports that an inquiry was being launched into the Big Billion Day sale. “There is nothing promised on e-commerce,” she said on Tuesday, adding that interpreting her comments about inputs from the public as a sign of new policy or investigation was “stretching it a bit too far.”

Sitharaman was in London for an Institute of Director’s global business meeting on corporate governance and sustainability, meetings with British industry and members of the British government, including Business Secretary Vincent Cable. She also reiterated the Government’s stance on a number of other issues including retrospective taxation, insisting that the approach the Government had taken was the only prudent one that was “forward looking without going down the road of retrospective taxation.”

She said the Government remained very “open minded” on the issue of the Free Trade Agreement with the EU, currently on hold. “It is now for the EU to come back to us and say they would like to proceed on this.”

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