New Delhi: Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani said Tuesday India will grow to be among the top three economies in the world in the next two decades. He asserted that the per capita income in Indian would more than double. Mukesh Ambani made the comments at a fireside chat with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The scion of the Ambani group said India’s middle-class is about 50 per cent of the nation’s total number of households. It will grow three to four per cent per year.
“I firmly believe that in the next two decades, India will grow to be among the top three economies in the world,” said Ambani. “More importantly, it will become a premier digital society, with young people driving it. And our per capita income will go from USD 1,800-2,000 per capita to USD 5,000 per capita,” asserted Ambani.
Facebook, Jio and many other companies as well as entrepreneurs in the world have a golden opportunity to be in India. They can be part of the economic and social transformation that will accelerate in the coming decades, informed the Reliance Industries head.
Ambani said India has faced the COVID crisis with enormous resilience and resolve. “The sheer magnitude of COVID-19 pandemic, like everybody else in the world, did startle all of us in India. But then I think it is not in India’s DNA to be deterred by a crisis,” Ambani said. He added that every crisis presented an opportunity for new growth.
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“Sometimes I wonder that if the pandemic had struck India just four or five years earlier, we would not have been in as good a shape as what we are today, with all the connectivity we have,” Ambani said, lauding the ‘Digital India’ vision.
It is during the pandemic that India has attracted the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in its history. “…We have our own example of how Jio and Facebook concluded our partnership right in the middle of lockdown,” Ambani said. He was referring to Facebook’s Rs 43,574 crore investment in Jio Platform earlier this year.
It may be recalled that Jio Platforms has raised about Rs 1,52,056 crore from marquee investors during the pandemic. ‘Jio’ is India’s youngest but largest telecom firm. Among the investors have been Facebook, Google, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic and KKR.
Ambani said he is of the firm belief that technology, with all the digitisation steps that India has taken, will democratise the wealth. It will add value creation for individuals and small businesses.
“And together with our platforms and the tools that we will provide to small businesses and to individual consumers, I believe will drive India to a 5 trillion economy and will make a much more equal India, with more equal wealth growth at the bottom of the pyramid,” Ambani said.