New Delhi, Jan 15 (KNN) Amazon's  CEO Jeff Bezos on Wednesday announced that the company would invest 1 billion dollar in digitising Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) on its platform in the country.

Speaking at the Amazon ''Smbhav'' event here, he said, ''Amazon will invest 1 billion dollar to help digitise Indian MSMEs. 21st century will be Indian century and the biggest alliance between India and the US.''

The company has so far invested 5.5 billion dollar in the country.

Jeff Bezos’ three-day visit to India is marked with protests from sellers on its platform, which have complained about Amazon’s anti-competitive pricing practices.

"Over the next five years, Amazon will invest an incremental $1 billion to digitise micro and small businesses in cities, towns, and villages across India, helping them reach more customers than ever before. This initiative will use Amazon''s global footprint to create $10 billion in India exports by 2025," he added.

Under the initiative, Amazon would stablish ''Digital Haats'' in 100 cities, villages, and communities to help businesses integrate into the digital economy. Digital Haats would be in local neighbourhoods and available to MSMEs irrespective of their association with Amazon, a company statement said.

Amazon’s support to Indian exporters would support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious ‘Make in India’ programme.

Amazon is hosting a two-day event ‘Sambhav’ here starting January 15.

Meanwhile, traders are staging protests across several cities, under the aegis of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) protesting against the visit. CAIT has been protesting for the past few months against what it calls "deep" discounts offered by the platforms.

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