Ambani terms Donald Trump “a blessing in disguise for India”

Donald Trump’s executive order on #TravelBAN may have left the US and the world shocked, but India’s richest businessman believes the new US president may be good for the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

“Actually, Trump might be a blessing in disguise. It (Trump’s appointment) will help Indian talent and Indian IT industry to focus on solving problems in India,” Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said today (Feb. 16) and called for strengthening domestic capabilities..

“The domestic market is huge and this provides an opportunity to improve people’s quality of life and to make sure industries are more productive,” added Ambani at an event organized by Indian IT industry lobby Nasscom.

“We have a very big advantage in this new world of digitisation. It’s very very important to be open, to have partnerships and not be closed. That is really a strength we should build on, and continue to be open and never think whatever the world changes. The world might want to build walls around. I think it is very important for us not to be influenced by those developments, to make sure that we are always open, always connected,” he said.

India’s $150-billion IT outsourcing sector has a massive exposure to the US and could be the most vulnerable to Trump’s protectionist stance. Outsourcing firms based in the country, which get over 65% of their revenue from the US, depend heavily on US work visas. Over the last couple of months, at least two bills to tighten norms for issuing the H-1B, the long-term work visa, have been proposed in the American congress.

Around 9.5% of India’s GDP comes from the outsourcing industry, which employs nearly 3.7 million people. The proposed bills have battered the stocks of large companies like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.

Be the first to comment

The Indian Panorama - Best Indian American Newspaper in New York & Dallas - Comments