No need for frequent policy change, Amazon India chief

Amazon India head Amit Agarwal has cautioned against “abrupt” and “unnecessarily frequent policy change” as it will hurt the e-commerce sector’s ability to play a crucial role in economic recovery, while maintaining that the operations are in line with government guidelines.

“What you need is a policy framework that is enabling, recognises e-commerce as an important lever for economic recovery and growth of India and is focused on removing friction points and enabling more ease of doing business–for example removing paper work for online seller exporting globally,” Agarwal told TOI in an interview.

The statement comes weeks after commerce & industry minister Piyush Goyal said that the government may issue clarifications to ensure that e-commerce marketplaces, such as Amazon, followed the rules in letter and spirit. The government is also working on an e-commerce policy, where several issues are being discussed.

Amid fresh accusations of violation of rules, Agarwal claimed the e-commerce major has created 2 lakh direct and indirect jobs in India in 2020 as it ramped up operations amid the pandemic to meet growing demand of e-commerce here.

“There would always be vested interests who would resist to embrace change. We have seen 1.5 lakh new sellers come online just last year,” he said. Agarwal said it’s not a secret that Cloudtail and Appario Retail (where Amazon is a joint-venture partner in the parent firms of these sellers) are among its seven lakh sellers and that it has publicly announced changes to ensure compliance.

The Amzaon India boss, who is currently in the US, also blamed “vested interests” for seeking to distract company employees.

“They interpret past actions and statements in the context of current regulations. They are ignoring the fact that regulations in India have changed significantly in the last seven years, since we have been operating in India. We are very transparent with our partnership with all our partners. They are credible leaders with high credibility,” Agarwal said, adding that the allegations don’t represent facts and reality.

Apart from complaints from local traders, Amazon is also locked in legal battles with Future Group over the latter selling its retail assets to RIL in a Rs 24,713- crore deal as it seeks to block the transaction. ToI