Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking intervention in ensuring that there is certainty and predictability in the business environment in the country.
The Walmart CEO had met with Modi recently in New York when the latter was in the US for the UNGA and related engagements. The timing of the letter is the most significant aspect since the policy changes came just months after the Walmart-Flipkart deal and e-commerce players were given time till February to mend their ways of doing business. Strictly speaking, the government did not even make any changes in the policy; the circular issued in December 2018 was just to reiterate the terms and conditions of doing business in India under the FDI regulations within which the Amazons and Flipkarts were granted licences to set up shop in the online retail space.
In his letter to the PM, the Walmart CEO has spoken eloquently on other issues, like praising the PM for improving the business environment in the country. McMillon has then gone on to mention how Walmart stays committed to India and has invested heavily here and so on. He has alluded to Walmart sourcing from India for its global operations etc.
Walmart had earlier taken a stand that as a global business enterprise it is fully aware that policy changes do occur and that they are prepared for making the necessary adjustments.
Even though the Commission of India (CCI) ruled in their favour against the complaints made by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is now directly investigating into complaints of deep discounting etc.
Interestingly, both Amazon and Flipkart managed to do business worth Rs 19,000 crore in just a few days of their festive sales. Building up to the Diwali festival, the offline retail trading community felt its business was being snatched away by these online players with deep pockets. This is now being investigated by the DPIIT, which issued a questionnaire to elicit answers from the two e-commerce players. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal made it clear that if found guilty, action will be taken.