The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has welcomed the decision of the Shopee to exit from India and said that any company which will violate the sovereign law of the Country and breaching 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- said CAIT National President Mr B C Bhartia & Secretary General Mr. Praveen Khandelwal while commenting upon Shopee exit. The CAIT strongly launched a move against Shopee on 16th September,2021 and later made extensive follow up with the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce.
Bhartia & Mr Khandelwal said that the CAIT first raised its voice when it sent a communication to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi demanding ouster of Shopee owned by SEA group which has substantial chinese investment violating provisions of Press Note No.3 (2020) revising the FDI policy to require that any foreign direct investment from neighbouring countries to India ( with whom India shares land boundaries) would be allowed only after obtaining the prior approval of the Government.
SEA Holdings (the holding company of Shopee) has significant ownership (almost 25%) by Tencent (a known Chinese investment firm). Also, the Founder of SEA, Forrest Li is originally Chinese, but became a naturalised Singaporean only a few years back. SEA uses Tencent cloud to store data. Also, SEA’s gaming subsidiary, Garena licenses most games from Tencent leading to huge royalties and the investment ensures that there is significant control and access to data.
Bhartia & Mr Khandelwal also said that 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 on their businesses.
