E-commerce portals to have ‘country of origin’ option to curb online sale of Chinese products: Sources

New Delhi: Amid the India-China face-off, the Prime Minister Modi-led Central government is planning to make it compulsory for the e-commerce websites to display the ‘country of origin’ tag on all the products for its customers, according to sources.

The recent Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army clashes in the Galwan Valley along with the motive to promote the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, the government may decide to take this call.

Earlier on June 22, the government made it compulsory for all products on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal to be labelled with the country of origin. All new and old products must declare their country of origin. The government will give reminders to those companies who don’t comply with the norm. If they still fail to declare the country of origin, the government will withdraw the product from the GeM portal.

According to sources, a meeting was held today by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) which comes under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to take a call on similar norms to be implemented for the e-commerce websites.

Sources say that in the meeting the DPIIT officials made it clear to the e-commerce players that the rule of ‘country of origin’ can be implemented soon and if they don’t comply accordingly, the product will not be listed on the portal.

If the product has been imported, then the full details of the importer will have to be given by the sellers.

The purchasers will also have an option to select a filter where they will only be shown the products that have been made in India.

According to statistics, the Chinese goods in the Indian markets in 11 months of FY 2020, collected over $47 billion.