Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said Amazon was not doing any favour to India by investing a billion dollars in the country. He asked the US retailer to follow the letter and spirit of the law and questioned how the firm could incur such “big” losses but for predatory pricing.
“They (Amazon) may have put in a billion dollars but if they make a loss of a billion dollars every year, then jolly well will have to finance that billion dollars. So, it is not as if they are doing a favour to India when they invest a billion dollars,” he said at a conference here.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had on Wednesday said the $1-billion investment by Amazon.com would help to bring small and medium businesses online. This investment was in addition to the $5.5-billion funding announced earlier.
US trade talks
Goyal said India was in advanced stages to resolve some of the trade issues with Washington and was keen to expand ties, including a free trade pact. “With the US we are at an advanced stage of dialogue to sort out some of the pressing issues,” Goyal said
The two countries have been locked in trade disputes for months, slapping higher tariffs on each other’s products and the US withdrawing a key concession to India.
