New York Times reports:
Wal-Mart Stores gave up on India’s huge retailing market Wednesday, announcing that it had indefinitely delayed its once ambitious plans to open hundreds of superstores in its own brand across the country.
Why? Because of some crazy rules India has dreamed up for foreign retailers:
Wal-Mart’s chief executive for Asia, Scott Price, said this week that the Indian government’s regulations requiring foreign retailers to buy 30 percent of products from local small and midsize businesses were the “critical stumbling block” to opening its trademark consumer stores.
“I don’t understand how this 30 percent small and medium enterprise can be executed,” Mr. Price said in an interview Monday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bali, Indonesia, The Associated Press reported.
He said that Indian retailers were not required to follow the same rule, which made it too difficult for outsiders to make money, because no enterprise small enough to meet the government’s requirements had the capability to produce on the scale that a giant retailer requires.
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