By IANS
New Delhi : The much-hyped plan of the world's largest coffee chain Starbucks to enter India seems to have been stalled at least for the time being, a senior government official indicated Friday.
"There's no progress in the case at all," Ajay Dua, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), told IANS on the sidelines of an official event here.
He had last month said the company would be filing a fresh proposal to enter India as its first application was rejected by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board – a government body that approves foreign investment applications in India – on the ground that the proposed equity structure for India operations was ambiguous.
The company has been trying to enter the Indian market for sometime to tap its huge market of coffee drinkers.
It had already announced its intention of opening outlets in shopping malls of Delhi and Mumbai.
Seattle-based Starbucks has over 7,000 outlets worldwide, out of which about approximately 6,000 are in the US. It has a major presence in Britain, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, the UAE, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore among others.