India refuses to join e-commerce talks at WTO, says rules to hurt country

India will not join the talks on e-commerce at the World Trade Organization (WTO), with New Delhi pushing the draft e-commerce policy back home. This comes at a time when richer nations are batting for global rules for the sector. Discussions on the rules are set to start by March.

“The idea is to create guidelines that will serve as the basis of any later international agreement on e-commerce, which will favour richer nations owing to the nature of the developed market systems and penetration by online firms in the retail space,” a commerce department official said.

The draft, brought out on Saturday, warned about the dangers of massive revenue and data loss, which will accompany any move to build a global e-commerce regime. It also pushed a crucial demand for data localisation and tech transfer that developed economies have consistently resisted.