India’s growth journey will shape world’s future: N Chandrasekaran

India is well positioned to lead the global transitions of digital and artificial intelligence, energy, value supply chains, and the country’s growth journey will shape the world’s future, B20 India Chair N Chandrasekaran said on Friday.

In his address to the B20 Summit India 2023 here, Chandrasekaran, who is also the chairman on Tata Sons, asserted that India stands as a beacon of growth and positively stands out in the global economy, which is facing strong headwinds, tightest rate cycle in decades and record levels of public debt. “The world is currently navigating through three important fundamental transitions. The first is the digital and artificial intelligence transition; the second, energy transition and the third, a global value supply chain transition. India is extremely well positioned to lead in all the three,” he said.

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India, over the last decade has created a “fantastic digital infrastructure” and has proven public services delivery at large scale, Chandrasekaran pointed out, adding “all of us who live here make our payments only digitally. I don’t think any of us carry cash. Not a day goes without looking for multiple OTPs”. With the kind of success in digital infrastructure coupled with a strong talent base, he said,”It is very natural for us to make and lead this transition.” On the energy transition, he said,”Most of the energy we need over the next three decades, that’s almost two-thirds or three-fourths of the energy we need, we will have to create. So India will be creating the new energy for growth and will not be substituting the old energy.”

So that makes it easy to transition and more importantly, that makes it most exciting and economically more interesting for all investors, Chandrasekaran said. On global value supply chain, he said,”The current geopolitical shifts and a large domestic market in India and the global presence of companies in India and the strong talent base that we have make it very compelling for India to lead the creation of an alternative supply chain.” He said India has many things that goes in its favour, while also highlighting the “transformative government initiatives” such as the public digital infrastructure PM Gati Shakti, PLI incentive schemes, Startup India, reduction in corporate taxes, which are helping the country “sustain the fantastic economic momentum that we have among the G20 countries”.

“But at the same time, India and all of us here are super committed to equitable growth, particularly in the Global South, committed to sustainability and climate action, committed to innovation and therefore, India’s growth journey will shape the world’s future,” Chandrasekaran asserted. He further said,”We at India stand as a beacon of growth, on track to achieve around 7 per cent average growth over the next decade. As the fifth largest economy in the world, on the way to becoming home to the largest talent reservoir, India is set to contribute greatly to inclusive global development.” Chandrasekaran also informed the gathering that 54 recommendations across nine themes and 172 policy actions have come out of the consensus that has been achieved across over 1,400 participants during discussions of B20 under India’s leadership.

He also announced a B20 Global Institute based in India with the purpose to be an “evangelist, change agent, knowledge-based thought leader think tank with highly experienced people” who will work with the B20 nations and the B20 Chair every year to be able to drive the agenda.