Amidst controversy over its scope of operations, Metro Cash and Carry, an Indian arm of Germany based supply chain management, on Wednesday said the company was catering only to commercial clients having permanent sales tax number like restaurants and offices and denied its indulgence in retail trading.

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"We would like to assure the government that our business-to-business model will be within the framework of existing policies. As per the government guidelines, we are only catering to commercial clientele who have a permanent sales tax number," Harsh Bahadur, managing director of the company, said in New Delhi.

Cash and Carry India, a business-to-business supply chain management company, got the Foreign Investment Promotion Board approval in 2000 to set up its shop here, and has invested Rs 176 crore (Rs 1.76 billion) till now.

At present the company is fine-tuning its strategy to add more distribution centres across India apart from the existing two in Bangalore.

It may be mentioned here that foreign direct investment is not allowed in retailing, to protect the domestic retail industry.

"In Asia, India is the third country we are operating in and we plan to make it (India) our export base. We are also targeting a Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) sales turnover over next six months," he said.