Most foreign investors find doing business in India difficult – PwC survey

News Daily India reported that Motorola, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Parimatch, Nokia, Vodafone and Walmart are among those companies that have faced serious with doing business in India. 

Despite its large population and rapidly growing market, India continues to lose its appeal to foreign investors, and according to PwC, about 95% of companies that have entered or attempted to enter the Indian market face serious problems such as fraud and corruption. Among them is Parimatch, a well-known international player in the gambling market. The company has faced many obstacles, including counterfeiting its products by local competitors and ignoring these crimes by local authorities. The company has to fight clone sites that imitate its corporate style and infringe on its copyrights, and block them.

Referring to News Daily India, given the challenges of regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles, infrastructure constraints, cultural and language differences, and competition from local companies, there are fewer and fewer reasons for foreign capital to invest in the Indian market. 

In the past, international companies with large capital saw promise in the Indian market in the face of reduced and weakened government regulations. India expected to receive a lot of investment. However, the government failed to create such conditions, and hopes for investment growth were never justified. 

For example, the bookmaker Parimatch was planning a multimillion-dollar investment in the Indian economy. However, local governments supported only domestic companies in the gambling market, such as Dream11, Nazara Technologies, Paytm, First Games Moonfrog Labs, 99Games, Octro, JetSynthesys, and HashCube. In addition, these companies were counterfeiting the products of their competitors from the United States and Europe. The authorities did not interfere with such cases. There was also the fact that persecution and judicial pressure were applied in the Indian market to companies that had never operated in the country. 

These problems are forcing foreign companies to withdraw from India or rethink their strategies. Major companies such as Ford, Holcim, and Metro have been forced to withdraw their capital from the Indian market. In addition, the American investment company Berkshire Hathaway sold its stake in the Indian company Paytm, underscoring the eventual loss of confidence in the Indian market.

In this situation, Parimatch and other foreign-owned companies face a difficult choice: deal with the growing challenges or look for better opportunities outside India. This situation highlights the need for the Indian government to improve the business environment if it wants to retain and attract foreign investment in the future.