new delhi commerce and industry minister piyush goyal on thursday played down the 1 billion investment promised by amazon boss jeff bezos saying the money was meant to cover the losses that the ecommerce player had notched up in the country and it was not doing a favourthe ministers statement at the raisina dialogue came a day after the amazon ceo announced a fresh 1 billion investment in india to digitise small businesses in the country as part of an initiative to get them to sell on the marketplacei have on more than one occasion said this to the people of india that please follow the letter of the law and the spirit of the law dont try to find loopholes they may have put in 1 billion but if they make a loss of 1 billion every year then they jolly well have to finance that 1 billion it is not as if they are not doing a great favour to india when they invest 1 billion the minister said at the eventhe then went on to reiterate that ecommerce companies that were allowed to operate through the marketplace model and barred from multibrand retail needed to adhere to the rules in letter and spiritjust last week competition commission of india the countrys fairplay watchdog ordered a probe to see if the two big etailers amazon and rival flipkart were operating in line with indian competition rules the probe came days before bezos landed in india government officials including goyal coldshouldered overtures from amazon to meet bezos during his visit to the countrysmall traders are up in arms against global retail giants saying they are undercutting their businesses leading to job losses and have demanded a levelplaying fieldthey are investing money over the last few years in warehousing and certain other activities which is welcome and very good in a fair marketplace model if on a turnover of 10 billion you are going to have a loss of 1 billion it certainly raises questions over where the loss came from how can a marketplace make such a big loss unless they are indulging in predatory pricing or some unfair trade practices goyal said adding that the authorities probing allegations of wrongdoing by companies such as amazon and flipkart will look into italthough the minister was attacked on social media for the statement confederation of all india traders which has been behind protests against amazon and flipkart by local traders lauded the bold and pragmatic statement with this stand the minister has once again reiterated that the government is sensitive to the interests of seven crore traders of india who are severely affected by the malpractices of ecommerce giants cait president praveen khandelwal said in a statementwe have very strict rules about fdi in multibrand retail where only 49 fdi is allowed and anybody who tries to use the marketplace model to get into the multibrand retail space surreptitiously will have to be questioned and will have to be