India to oppose multilateral rules in e-commerce at G-20 meet in Japan

India is likely to oppose attempts by developed countries, including Japan, at the G-20 Ministerial meeting on trade and digital economy at Tsukuba City, Japan, beginning this weekend, to get a consensus on initiating multilateral rule-making for e-commerce.

Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, who will represent India in the meet, is expected to stick to India’s stance so far of saying no to e-commerce negotiations on rules, a government official told BusinessLine .

“The G-20 meeting will be the Minister’s first international engagement after taking charge of his new portfolio. He is expected to argue that it would be premature to go in for multilateral rules on e-commerce as the sector was still evolving,” the official said.

Japan, which is one of the countries keen to negotiate on e-commerce rules at the World Trade Organization (WTO) platform, is likely to push for consensus on the matter amongst G-20 members using its role as the host country.