FDI in Indian retail industry – challenges and opportunities

Few sectors in India have generated as much public and investor attention, excitement and media coverage as retail has in the last 20 years. Yet, it remains the only large sector of the Indian economy that has seen a far more regressive, muddled and convoluted policy than in 1991. In the 1990’s, it was the relatively small size of India's economy and as even smaller size of private retail consumption that was the primary reason for lack of interest from big Indian business houses of global retail giants such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour to set up large, modern retail businesses in India. The present paper develops an insight to highlight the present scenario of FDI in Indian Retail Industry. Efforts have also been made to elaborate the opportunities for FDI in retail sector in India and rank the benefits of FDI in Indian retail sector. Further, an attempt has been made to enumerate the challenges and rank the drawbacks of FDI in Indian Retail by applying Henry Garret Ranking Technique.