Carrefour revives talks with Future Group for India entry

After Tesco made a multi-brand FDI proposal with its current local

partner Tata to enter India, world's second-largest retailer Carrefour, has revived its talks with Kishore Biyani-led Future Group as a part of its plans to enter India. Three years ago, Carrefour was almost in the final stages of its negotiations with the Future Group, when it was scouting a local partner to open multi-brand retail stores in the country. However, lack of clarity over investment norms under the FDI policy had forced the global major to put its plans on hold.

Though the Indian government had allowed 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retail sector last September, it had not received a single proposal owing to certain rules of the FDI policy like mandatory sourcing from Indian SMEs and investment in back-end infrastructure. Many global retailers, including US-based Walmart, Carrefour and even Tesco had put their plans on hold, but after ministry’s meetings with both domestic and international retailers, the government in August 2013 eased the norms to make the segment lucrative for retailers.