'India Is A Country Of Entrepreneurs,' Amazon's Jeff Bezos Tells Modi Amazon to invest an additional $3 billion, making a total investment of $5 billion in India.
By Ritu Kochar
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Amazon has taken India to be their second home and their plans for development, to everyone's delight, are not going to stop anytime soon.
In an event held in Washington, which was attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bezos stated that India was Amazon's fastest growing region. Moreover, he said that the eCommerce giant is planning to invest an additional $3 billion in India, boosting its committed investment in the country to over $5 billion.
"We have already created some 45,000 jobs in India and continue to see huge potential in the Indian economy," said Bezos. "Our Amazon.in team is surpassing even our most ambitious planned milestones, and I'm pleased to announce today that we'll invest an additional $3 billion on top of the $2 billion that we announced in 2014, bringing our total investment in India to over $5 billion."
"I can assure you it's only the beginning and as we say in Amazon, it's only day one," Bezos added saying that the investments would help start-ups in India and accelerate the country's role as a hub for innovation and digital entrepreneurship.
Amazon already has a warehouse on the outskirts of Hyderabad and had so far built 21 fulfillment centres with more than 5 million cubic feet of storage space. Bezoz thanked the Indian Post for its link-up which enabled Amazon to reach all serviceable postal codes in the country.
According to Amazon's plans, India will soon be home to firm's largest software engineering and development centre outside of the United States, located in Hyderabad and a Web Services Cloud Region in India will also be opened.
Jeff Bezos said the Hyderabad centre would create jobs and career development opportunities for thousands of people and a "significant" number of jobs would be created over time because of the deployment of Amazon Cloud Services. According to a tweet by Vikas Swarup, the official spokesperson for Ministry of External Affairs, Jeff Bezos said to the Prime Minister that he believes India is a country of entrepreneurs.
India is a country full of entrepreneurs. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tells PM @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/vIhIbTnS8O
— Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) June 7, 2016
In an evening dedicated to business at the CEOs Roundtable attended by the CEOs of most renowned companies across the world, Narendra Modi said that every suggestion made by CEOs will be examined and asked them to work more closely with India and in India.