By IANS,
New Delhi: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Saturday strongly opposed any move to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail in view of the recommendation made by an inter-ministerial group on inflation headed by Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu.
The party’s politburo said in a statement that it was yet another instance of “pro-MNC (multi-national company), neo-liberal framework” which will badly affect people, and called for protests against the move.
“Having utterly failed to curb relentless increase in prices of essential commodities, the move is to utilise that very failure to push for more concessions to multi-national companies like Walmart,” the statement said.
It said the “specious arguments” put forward that the entry of MNC retail giants like Walmart will enhance efficiency of the supply chain and bring down trading margins belies international experience which shows that “any state regulation of these giant retailers are always rendered ineffective”.
“In fact, MNCs will enjoy much greater monopoly power over both farmers and consumers and will manipulate prices to their benefit, while at the same time the livelihood of millions of small unorganized retailers will be virtually wiped out,” it said.
The statement said that it was shocking that the group of ministers refused to accept the Supreme Court direction to strengthen the public distribution system (PDS) and distribute foodgrain to people which is also one of the ways of controlling market prices.
“It is to be noted that the inter-ministerial group has not suggested any meaningful step to curb food inflation, like enhancing agricultural productivity or stepping up public investment in storage and transportation. Options like strengthening the PDS and banning future trade in essential commodities are also being ignored,” it said.
Basu, chief economic advisor to the finance ministry, Friday favoured opening up multi-brand retail sector for foreign investment, saying it would reduce price gap and help curb inflationary pressure in the country.
Basu said foreign investment in multi-brand retail would reduce current account deficit and help reduce gap in wholesale and retail prices.