Slashdot Mirror
India Curbs Power of Amazon and Walmart To Sell Products Online (nytimes.com)
The Indian government dealt a surprise blow on Wednesday to the e-commerce ambitions of Amazon and Walmart, effectively barring the American companies from selling products supplied by affiliated companies on their Indian shopping sites and from offering their customers special discounts or exclusive products. From a report: If strictly interpreted, the new policies could force significant changes in the India strategies of the retail giants. Amazon might have to stop competing with independent sellers and end its offerings of proprietary products like its Echo smart speakers in India, its top emerging market. For Walmart, which spent $16 billion this year to buy 77 percent of Flipkart, India's leading online retailer, the new rules could hamper its strategy of selling clothing and other products under its own private brands and prevent it from using its supply-chain expertise and clout with retailers to drive down prices for Indian consumers.
[...] The government posted the changes, which go into effect Feb. 1, without warning on Wednesday evening in New Delhi, while much of the business world in both countries was on vacation. [...] Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India initially courted foreign companies to invest more in the country after his 2014 election victory, but his administration has turned protectionist as his party's re-election prospects have dimmed in recent months. Mr. Modi has increasingly sought to bolster Indian firms and curb foreign ones through new policies, including one that requires foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store all data about Indians on computers inside the country.
[...] The government posted the changes, which go into effect Feb. 1, without warning on Wednesday evening in New Delhi, while much of the business world in both countries was on vacation. [...] Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India initially courted foreign companies to invest more in the country after his 2014 election victory, but his administration has turned protectionist as his party's re-election prospects have dimmed in recent months. Mr. Modi has increasingly sought to bolster Indian firms and curb foreign ones through new policies, including one that requires foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store all data about Indians on computers inside the country.
What a dumbass.
ALL you will do is allow the rest of the world see the USA acting like a bully.
Better yet, you will allow China to show Asia that the USA is not to be trusted.
Asia is where the consumer growth is dumb dumb, its 60% of the worlds population, and US policy is slowly but surely seeing the US locked out of Asia.
India is part of Asia.
Asia is over 60% of the worlds population
Asia is where all the real economic growth is happening
This is a growing sign that Asia cares less and less about the USA.
Trump WILL do something stupid in retaliation which will only increase the growing rift between the USA and the world.
After reading what he has actually put in place, it sounds quite reasonable. It is not that amazon is not allowed to sell in india: It is that foreign-owned companies can not sell direct to the public. The can still sell goods as a wholesaler to retail, which sells to consumer. This sounds like a good idea, as it allows external companies to bring in goods to the country, whilst the countries economy will benefit from the sales of the externally owned products.
If amazon is considered akin to ebay - a place that allows seller and buyer to make a trade via a third party - I expect it will continue as consumers will continue to use it as they already did, as personal exchanges and post.
If amazon is considered as a distribution company, I expect they would simply make a sub company in india and continue as normal.
So I fail to see how this will apply well to amazon.
The other example about having to have an indian datacentre is also reasonable. Like every other country, keeping data local and in your juristiction is common sense for a country.