After labelling country of origin on GeM, govt may ask e-comm firms to follow

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has reportedly called a meeting with all leading e-commerce companies over displaying country of origin on the products sold on their platform.

The development comes soon after the government made it mandatory for sellers to disclose the ‘country of origin’ on the products they list on its e-procurement platform Government e-Marketplace or GeM.

The continuing border standoff between India and China and the ongoing sentiments over boycotting Chinese products might have triggered the need for a meeting which is to be held on Wednesday.

According to a CNBC-TV 18 report, DPIIT secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra has confirmed the development and was quoted as saying that the meeting will be independent of the upcoming e-commerce policy. 

The government may include the demand of labelling of products’ origin in the policy, however, there is no confirmation on the matter. 

Entrackr has sent queries to Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal for a comment on the development. We will update the story if they respond.

While it appears that the government has taken the step of mandatory disclosure of ‘country of origin’ on its GeM to boost its Atmanirbhar Bharat and ‘Make in India’ initiatives, sellers across platforms may find it complicated to support the same.

According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, customers can see the country of origin on GeM and it has also introduced a provision for sellers to indicate the percentage of local content in each product. Moreover, the ‘Make in India’ filter has now been enabled on the portal.

Buyers on GeM will now have a choice to buy products with over 50% local content. Further, sellers will be classified into Class I local suppliers who sell products with over 50% local content, and Class II local suppliers, selling products with local content ranging from 20%-50%.