India is World's Biggest Investment Opportunity, Says a Bullish Mukesh Ambani

Ambani was giving his acceptance speech at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence, where he won the 'Business Leader of the Year' award

India represents the biggest investment opportunity in the world right now and its economy will treble in size to $7 trillion from $2.5 trillion in the next decade, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Sunday. 

Ambani was giving his acceptance speech at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence, where he won the 'Business Leader of the Year' award, the financial daily reported.  

Here's what he had to say about the Indian economy and investing in the country:

1) Speaking at the event, according to ET, Ambani said, "A few years ago, the fashion in India was to invest abroad." : "If you don't invest abroad, you are left out. We took a contrarian bet and invested over Rs 3.5 lakh crore in a single bet in India. The significant portion of that investment is in Jio." 

2) Echoing his words at the India Mobile Congress, Ambani said that the Indian economy would treble in size to $7 trillion in ten years. On September 27, 2017, while addressing the inaugural edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC), Ambani had said that the Indian economy would grow from $2.5 trillion to over $7 trillion over the next 10 years to become one of the top 3 economies in the world. 

3) Ambani also said that the country represents the biggest investment opportunity in the world right now, ET reported. During his address at the IMC, Ambani had said: "The fourth industrial revolution, fuelled by connectivity, data and artificial intelligence has begun. Data is the oxygen of a digital economy. We cannot deprive Indians of this vital life-sustaining resource. Data is the new oil, which does not need to be imported. We have it in super-abundance."     

4) Referring to the rivalry between incumbent telecom companies and Reliance Jio, Ambani said that "some ragging by incumbents is tolerable and fun and we can still be friends". According to the ET report, the audience included Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, and Vodafone India CEO Sunil Sood. 

5) Stating that Jio provided India with "critical infrastructure", Ambani said that the country needed to participate in the global economy as first-class citizens. Further, he said that the notion of new things first happening abroad and then filtering to India ten years later could no longer apply. During the IMC, too, he had emphasised the need to break silos to invest in creating next-generation technology and forge newer partnerships. Hailing India as one of the biggest telecom markets in the world, Ambani had said that data is a 'vital life-sustaining resource' which should be provided to all Indians at the most feasible cost.

Reference - http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/india-is-world-s-biggest-investment-opportunity-says-a-bullish-mukesh-ambani-117103000244_1.html