On Friday, the country’s biggest e-commerce player announced its plans to create one million job opportunities across sectors including cloud computing, software development, content creation, logistics and customer support among others by 2025.
“We are investing to create a million new jobs here in India over the next five years,” 56-year old Bezos said in a statement in Mumbai.
Amazon recently announced a “$1 billion incremental investment plan” to help digitize local businesses in India, and claims to have employed over 700,000 people in direct and indirect jobs since 2013 in the country.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) – a United Nations agency, unemployment is rising in India. The Indian government has prioritised skilling and job-creating initiatives in the country to boost job creation.
Bezos announcement came, despite protests by domestic vendors against the alleged E-retailers monopoly in the country.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which represents over 70 million traders and shopkeepers in the country, has been protesting against Bezos’ India-visit.
India’s anti-trust body, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has also ordered a probe to investigate whether e-retailers were violating India’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy and indulging in unethical business practices like deep discounting, predatory pricing and exclusive tie-ups.
In the wake of the situation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided not to meet the visiting multi-billionaire.
On 16 January, India’s Federal Trade and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, while addressing the annual multilateral Raisina Dialogue-2020 in New Delhi, advised foreign investors in India to adhere to the country’s laws in letter and spirit.
#Raisina2020
— Geeta Mohan گیتا موہن गीता मोहन (@Geeta_Mohan) January 16, 2020
Big story!@PiyushGoyal on unfair practices by @amazonIN :
Message to investors is please follow letter and spirit of the law
Amazon is not doing a favour to India by investing a billion dollars@IndiaToday @MEAIndia @DrSJaishankar @raisinadialogue pic.twitter.com/AKYwczbjLT
However, Goyal later clarified the context of his statement saying all "lawful investments" are most welcome in the country.
#PiyushGoyal speaks on his reported statement '...it's not as if they (Amazon) are doing a favour to India when they invest a bn dollars.” He says, "..My statement should be seen in context. Investments are welcome but they should be within the law..."pic.twitter.com/WsUL9ixZ16
— We For News (@WeForNews) January 17, 2020
Amid all the protests and investigations, Bezos along with his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez spent their last evening with Bollywood biggies including Shah Rukh Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Kamal Hasan, Raj Kummar Rao and Vidya Balan among others.
