E-commerce policy soon, willing to listen to WTO: Suresh Prabhu

The Union Minister for Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu on November 16 said that government will release the e-commerce policy in the near future.

Speaking at the Moneycontrol Wealth Creator Awards 2018, he said that the policy which was initially drafted by industry stakeholders was currently waiting for clearance from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.

Prabhu said that the policy will be favourable for the domestic e-commerce companies.

"We have prepared a draft for e-commerce policy. We want to promote domestic e-commerce as much as possible.E-commerce should be for the benefit of both companies and consumers," he said.

The Union Minister said that although the government is willing to listen to the World Trade Organization, the policy will be made by the Indian government.

"E-commerce rulemaking won't be done at WTO, we will make sure there are no monopolies," he said.

The draft e-commerce policy was released in late August. Prabhu had tweeted that he had received concern regarding the draft policy.

Talking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make in India initiative, the former Railways minister said that the aspiration of the initiative was that the country's "share of industry should be 25 percent."

"We have prepared a strategy to make sure it becomes 20 percent by the time India becomes a $5 trillion economy," he added.