Indicating a shift towards a segmented approach, commerce & industry minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday said rather than opening up all multi-brand retail to FDI, the government was seriously looking at opening up specific sectors.
This would require a segmented approach to retail, rather than a single-brand or multi-brand approach, which has been the guiding principle so far. Nath was responding to an article in FE on Wednesday that indicated the Centre was reviewing FDI policy for multi-brand retail.
?Retail isn?t about FDI or no FDI, it is about big versus small,? Nath said. FDI in multi-brand retail should be allowed in sectors that won?t hurt small shopkeepers but fill the gaps in our present retail market, he added.
He also said that rather than FDI in retail, the government was worried about whether large retail chains, domestic or international, would destroy kirana stores.
