The Indian government has approved a 51% FDI in multi-brand retail, allowing foreign retail players like WalMart, Tesco, and Carrefour to establish retail stores with local partners, reports NDTV. This also means that e-commerce players like Amazon would be able to operate full fledged online stores. Currently, Amazon operates Junglee.com, an advertising service for product ads, acting as an aggregator for Indian online retailers, pitting retailer against retailer for similar products. So it doesn't sell products directly. Walmart was also believed to have some plans for online retail, but it was reported that it had disbanded its e-commerce team. Conditions: However, the decision comes with a rider that multi-brand retail investment has to be approved by the state where the entity intends to set shop. We're not sure how it will apply to e-commerce players. We assume that they'd have to set-up operations in states that approve it. According to Anand Sharma, Union Cabinet Minister in charge of Commerce and Industry and Textiles, states like Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Manipur, J&K are inclined towards adopting FDI in multibrand FDI (via - Firstpost). There are other conditions that International players need to fulfil: the minimum FDI limit is $100 million, companies have to invest half of that amount in infrastructure like cold-storage chains and warehouses, and that at least 30% of the goods to be sold will need to be sourced from local partners. The government also allows FDI in single retail with some conditions, which makes it unviable for…
