In a move to win over protesting small businesses and local grocers, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos on Wednesday said the company would use its global footprint to export goods worth $10 billion sourced from small and medium enterprises by 2025. Amazon plans to invest $1 billion in the country to help bring these small businesses online.
“Over the next five years, Amazon will invest an incremental $1 billion to digitise micro and small businesses... helping them reach more customers than ever before. This initiative will use Amazon's global footprint to create $10 billion in exports from India by 2025,” he said at Amazon’s two-day SMBhav event here.
“We are committed to being a long-term partner of India. And actions speak louder than words,” he said.
“We are making this announcement now because it is working... When something works you should double down on it. And that is why we are doing it.”
Amazon hopes that this investment will “bring millions of more people into the future prosperity of India and at the same time expose the world to the products that represent India’s rich, diverse culture”.
The company had previously said it expected e-commerce exports from India to reach $5 billion by 2023 under its global selling programme. The online retail giant had earlier committed $5.5 billion to India — Amazon’s most important market outside of the US and a key growth driver.
Traders protest
However, not everyone is buying Amazon’s narrative about supporting India’s businesses. Trade body CAIT said the announcement was merely a “promotional finance” and also called it “ridiculous”.
“It is not an investment but a promotional finance to Amazon India to crush retail trade and encourage his team in India to do more predatory pricing and deep discounting,” Praveen Khandelwal, general-secretary, CAIT, said in a statement.
Bezos’s visit comes amid criticism from small business owners who accuse the company and Walmart’s Flipkart of unfair business practices. The companies deny the allegations.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has launched a probe into Amazon and Flipkart.
Murthy irked
The one-hour delay in the event left Infosys founder Narayana Murthy irritated on Wednesday. He expressed his displeasure by ending his speech in five minutes. At the end of his speech, the industrialist left the stage despite repeated calls from the emcee.
“I was supposed to talk for 20 minutes but I will finish it in 5 minutes. Because I’m not used to delays,” he said
Murthy also countered Bezos, who had expressed his confidence in India’s success story. Murthy said the responsibility to make his India vision successful was solely with Indians.
