Amazon chief and World’s richest man, Jeff Bezos has said that the e-commerce giant will export Make in India products worth $10 billion by 2025 as the company released 3rd edition of its annual e-commerce exports report on Monday.
“We are going to use Amazons global footprint to export $10 billion Make in India goods by 2025,” Bezos said in a statement. The Amazon head during his January visit to India had announced a $1 billion investment in digitizing India’s Small and medium businesses which contribute 48% to the country’s total exports.
Amazon’s cumulative export sales in 2019 grew by 100% touching $2 billion ( Rs 8,000 crore), the e-tailer’s country head, India and Senior-Vice President, Amit Agarwal said. Sharing a few success stories among 60,000 sellers who have been able to export their products using Amazon platform, Agarwal added that the e-commerce firm remains committed to its pledge of digitizing 10 million MSMEs, enabling 1 million incremental jobs and driving $10 billion in e-commerce exports from India by 2025.
Agarwal said that despite the COVID pandemic disrupting the businesses, thousands of Indian businesses exported products globally in 2-3 months of the crisis. “It took three years for the program to hit exports of $1B and now it has grown 100% to hit the next $1B in less than 18 months. With this, Indian MSMEs and brands using Amazon Global Selling to export worldwide, have crossed $2 billion in cumulative sales,” he added.
Amazon, Vice President, Seller Services, Gopal Pillai said that the e-commerce firm will submit a detailed proposal to the Indian government after the Union Minister for MSMes, Nitin Gadkari sought details from the firm on the businesses that have been able to grow over the years using the online marketplace. Pillai added that at least 8 lakh artisans in India are now selling various hand made products on the marketplace under Amazon Karigar programme.
At a time when the Indian government is mulling to formulate an e-commerce policy for India, Gadkari said that MSMes are pivotal to the growth of Indian economy and needs more FDI to boost the exports. The minister also urged the e-commerce giant to differentiate the products sold on the platform according to micro, small and medium sectors as well as based on the industries they cater to. He added that a marketplace like Amazon will be essential to take growth story of India’s small businesses overseas as also provide the global exposure to Indian products.
As the slogans of Aatmanirbhar Bharat ( self sufficient India) and Vocal for local gain momentum throughout the country, India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani has also announced his foray into the e-commerce space with the launch of JioMart that is operational across 200 cities in the country. Ambani has roped in Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg to tap the MSME sector in India by piloting a project that also includes digital payments through Whatsapp