Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, on a three-day visit to India, promised to create an additional 10 lakh jobs across the country by 2025 amid strained ties with the government over regulations and the coverage of The Washington Post, a newspaper he owns."We will use Amazon's global footprint to enable US$10 billion in exports of Indian products to the rest of the world by 2025. Our investments in India will create an additional 1 million jobs across the country by 2025," he said in a letter posted on Amazon.in on Friday.
"I fall more in love with India every time I return here. The boundless energy, innovation, and grit of the Indian people always inspire me," the American billionaire said.
Mr Bezos has already pledged an investment of $1 billion to digitize micro and small businesses in cities, towns, and villages across India.
The announcements come amid pushback from leaders of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet.Revealing tensions with the US online retail giant, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday had said Amazon hasn't done India any big favours by announcing the new $1 billion investment.
"They may have put in a billion dollars but then if they make a loss of a billion dollars every year then they jolly well have to finance that billion dollars," Mr Goyal told a security conference in New Delhi.
"So it's not as if they are doing a great favour to India when they invest a billion dollars," he said.
Amazon and its rival Flipkart, owned by American retailer Walmart, are facing mounting criticism from India's brick-and-mortar retailers, which accuse the US giants of violating the law by racking up billions of dollars of losses to fund deep discounts and discriminating against small sellers. The companies deny the allegations.