Indian billionaire and Asia’s richest Gautam Adani has said that China could become increasingly isolated from the rest of the world and the country would find it hard to bounce back from a period of economic weakness.
He added that increasing nationalism, supply chain risk mitigation, and technology restrictions will have an impact on China's economy.
"China’s Belt and Road initiative was expected to be a demonstration of its global ambitions, but the resistance now makes it challenging. And its housing and credit risks are drawing comparisons with what happened to the Japanese economy during the “lost decade” of the 1990s," he added.
Delivering the keynote address at the 20th Forbes Global CEO Conference 2022 in Singapore, the Adani Group chairman said that the global turbulence has accelerated opportunities for India.
"It has made India one of the few relatively bright spots from a political, geostrategic, and market perspective. The term “relatively” is important because Europe’s conditions have only gotten more difficult. The ongoing armed conflict has accelerated its structural weaknesses. Balancing the aspiration levels of the EU’s member countries and still keeping the EU united will be harder than ever before. The United Kingdom continues to slide as it struggles with Brexit and a new set of hard-to-optimize economic challenges," he said.
Adani added that India is on the path to be the world’s third largest economy by 2030.
"The fact is India’s real growth is just starting – as it goes from its 75th year of freedom this year – towards its 100th year of independence. Our country calls this period – Amrit Kaal. Meaning the perfect period for beginning a better tomorrow," he said.
The billionaire added that India will comfortably become a country with 100 percent literacy levels in the next 25 years and will also be poverty-free, well before 2050.
"We will be a country with a median age of just 38 years even in 2050 – and a country with the largest consuming middle class the world will ever see. We will also be the country that attracts the highest levels of foreign direct investment given the sheer scale of consumption of 1.6 billion people. We will be the country that will go from a 3 trillion-dollar economy to a 30 trillion-dollar economy, a country with a stock market capitalization of 45 trillion dollars, and a country that will be supremely confident of its position in the world," he said.
Adani further said: "India took almost 58 years to reach the 1-trillion-dollar GDP mark. It then took 12 years to achieve our 2nd trillion dollars – and thereafter, only 5 years to achieve the 3rd trillion dollars. This rate will further accelerate as the digital revolution kicks in and transforms every type of activity at a national scale."
Adani said that his group we will invest over $100 billion of capital in the next decade.
"We have earmarked 70 per cent of this investment for the Energy Transition space. We are already the world’s largest solar player, and we intend to do far more. In this context, Adani New Industries is the manifestation of the bet we are making in the energy transition space. It is our commitment to invest 70 billion dollars in an integrated green hydrogen-based value chain," he said.
