"Not Doing Favour To India": Piyush Goyal On Amazon's $1 Billion Commitment

A day after Amazon Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder Jeff Bezos said that his company will invest $1 billion in India to bring small and medium-sized businesses online, Union Minister for Commerce and Railways Piyush Goyal said that Amazon is not doing a great favour to India when they invest billion dollars.

"I've said this to investors... please follow letter and spirit of the law. Don't try and find loopholes," Mr Goyal said at an event in New Delhi.

"Secondly they may have put in a billion dollars but if they are losing a billion dollars every year then they jolly well have to finance the billion dollars. So it's not as if they're doing a great favour to India when they invest a billion dollars," Mr Goyal added.

Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos arrived in India at a time thousands of small traders across 300 cities planned protests, claiming that the firm is distorting the local retail market.

Hundreds and thousands of small brick-and-mortar retailers, led by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), have planned a countrywide protest against the company.

Meanwhile, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) launched a formal investigation into Amazon and Flipkart just hours before Mr Bezos' arrival, and trader bodies comprising millions of infuriated small store owners have announced demonstrations.

The fair trade regulator said it would probe the deep discounts, preferential listings and exclusionary tactics that Amazon and Flipkart are alleged to have used as anti-competitive levers.

US-based e-commerce giant Amazon has committed $5.5 billion in India investments and sees the country as a key growth market.