Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Tuesday said it has written to Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for ‘violation of laws’ pertaining to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), and Goods and Services Tax (GST) by Lots Wholesale Solutions (Lots), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siam Makro Public Company Limited (Siam Makro). Siam Makro is part of Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group) based in Thailand.
CAIT said Lots, which is reportedly trying to buy business-to-business wholesaler Metro Cash & Carry in India, is operating a B2C business in the garb of cash & carry business violating FEMA and GST laws. The association urged the government for ‘immediate action’ against Lots.
“It is highly regretted that Siam Makro instead of taking the corrective action is planning to buy Metro AG who is looking to exit India by selling the business built on FDI policy/FEMA violations for past several years,” CAIT National President BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said in a statement.
“This way Siam Makro, who itself is a big violator of the law will provide an exit path to another foreign company that has earned its valuation on the basis of its illegal business and at the cost of small merchants and Kirana stores,” the statement added. Lots was launched in January 2017 and currently serves retailers in hotels, restaurants, caterings (HoReCa) segment and service providers in Delhi NCR via three physical stores and a digital store catering to north India.