Indian shop owners, activists plan to protest Wal-Mart, other mega stores

A broad alliance of small shop owners, trade unions and left-wing activists planned rallies across India on Thursday to protest moves by Wal-Mart and other foreign mega stores to enter the Indian market.

With its 1.1 billion people and growing middle class, India is considered a rich prize for chains like Wal-Mart, who see a country dominated by an estimated 12 million mom-and-pop shops that can be easily out-priced by larger operations.

For now, the market remains protected from foreign chains that sell a variety of different brands _ those that offer only a single brand were allowed in last year. The protesters are demanding the government close loopholes they say big-box, or mega stores, such as Wal-Mart, are using to gain a toehold in India.

The protesters' slogan, "Quit Retail," is a play on Mohandas Gandhi's famous "Quit India" slogan, which rallied the country to independence from Britain 60 years ago this month. Rallies were planned for New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and a handful of other cities.

While Wal-Mart and other foreign retailers are the main target of the protests, domestic companies that have either started building chains of retail stores or are planning ones are also drawing their ire.

"This is just the first days of a long campaign," said Dhamendra Kumar of India FDI Watch, a group that's lobbying against the big stores. "Corporate retail is going to crush the spirit of this country," he said.

On Monday, Wal-Mart signed a deal with India's Bharti Enterprises to jointly build wholesale outlets that will buy goods from farmers and small manufacturers and sell to retailers through a nationwide supply chain.

The deal may help the U.S. company eventually gain a foothold in India's booming, but much protected, retail business, estimated to be worth more than US$250 billion (€181 billion) and growing at 20 percent every year.