Singapore E-Commerce Major Shopee Exits India

Tencent backed Singapore’s E-commerce giant has existed Indian market, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) notified on Monday, while welcoming the e-commerce firm's decision. 

The development came months after CAIT launched strong opposition against Shopee in September last year and took the matter to the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce. CAIT had alleged that Shopee’s parent company, SEA Holdings, had violated the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in India. Under Press Note No. 3 of the FDI policy annexure, any foreign direct investment from neighbouring counties will only be allowed in India after obtaining prior approval from the government. 

Praveen Khandelwal, general secretary of CAIT said, “Any company which will violate the sovereign law of the country and breaches data collected from India shall meet the same fate. There are a number of other foreign-funded companies who are habitually playing with Indian laws and involved in mal-practices. Either they should mend their ways else must pack their bags to exit from India.”

CAIT said that the Chinese investment firm, Tencent holds a 25 per cent stake in SEA Holdings and that the founder of SEA, Forrest Li is originally Chinese, but became a naturalized Singaporean only a few years back. It further said that since SEA Holdings uses Tencent Cloud for storing data, and its gaming subsidiary Garena licenses most games from Tencent leading to huge royalties and investment, Tencent has significant access and control of data regarding Indian citizens. 

“Entry of the likes of Shopee means compromising data and security of Indian citizens, flooding of the market with Chinese goods, anti-competitive tie-ups with large manufacturers with exclusive access – all of which will strike at the belly of our small trader who is already suffering from the impact of Covid-19 on their businesses,” Khandelwal said.