Big Move! Flipkart, Amazon, e-commerce players must display 'Country of Origin' for products, says DPIIT

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) asked e-commerce players including Amazon and Flipkart to display the ‘Country of Origin’ against products on their websites. The department has suggested a deadline for August 1 for the same, Zee Business has learnt. This means that any new product listed on the website post August 1 will contain a ‘Country of Origin’ tag next to it. 

The decision comes in the wake of India-China standoff and growing sentiment to boycott Chinese products following the Galvan Valley clash last month. 

The message was conveyed to all the e-commerce players during a meeting on Wednesday afternoon. While the platforms are happy with government’s decisions, they have sought more time to apply changes, Zee Business has learnt. 

The DPIIT had last week written to e-commerce companies asking them to comply with the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules 'at the earliest.' In 2017, the rules were amended to require all packaged commodities to display details such as the product's country of origin.

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The e-commerce companies, however, have lakhs of products listed on their websites and have demanded more time before they could reveal the Country of Origin of all the products. 

Earlier, the government had made it mandatory to mention ‘country of origin’ on products for GeM platform. The decision was taken to give a major boost to Make in India products. GeM or Government e-Marketplace is the online trading platform for state-run agencies. 

The announcement was made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Twitter. “Information about Country of Origin by the sellers made mandatory on GeM.  #MakeInIndia #AtmaNirbharBharat,” the tweet read.

The sellers who had already uploaded their products before the introduction of this new feature on GeM, are being reminded regularly to update the Country of Origin, with a warning that their products shall be removed from GeM if they fail to update the same. GeM has taken this significant step to promote ‘Make in India’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.