Hind Lever Boss Sure of India Reaching $ 10 tn status
While India
continues to face the headwinds of the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with an economic
degrowth, FMCG major HUL’s boss Sanjiv Mehta is confident
that India will become a $10 trillion economy in the coming years, provided a few
steps are taken in that direction. The goal should be to make India a middle-income
country, he said. “We have to cross the chasm from the 6-6.5 per cent, which we
have delivered over the last 30 years, to the 8-10 per cent kind of growth that
we need to deliver over the decade and a half to take India to a mid-income country,”
he said in a recent interaction with FICCI President Sangita
Reddy.
He also said
that if India is able to successfully do that, it will become a $10 trillion economy
in the next 12-15 years. Sanjiv Mehta is chairman and managing director of Hindustan Unilever, and is
Vice President, FICCI.
Coronavirus
impact on global trade
The coronavirus
pandemic has ravaged economies around the world, and India is no different. However
the implications of the pandemic will ring high on global trade which at about $18
trillion is likely to possibly decline by 20, Sanjiv Mehta
said. Moreover, the souring relations between two of the biggest economies in the
world — the US and China — where the two-way trade valued at $650 billion, could
possibly shift by about $100 billion, he said adding that India must gear up to
milk such a big opportunity.
Stating that
he does not agree with people who call the coronavirus pandemic a ‘black swan event’,
Sanjiv Mehta said that it is “essentially a herd of stampeding
black elephants,” and a crisis of huge magnitude which will have global ramifications.
“This is not just about an economic crisis; it is a health and a societal crisis
too and it will have far-reaching implications for the world at large,” he added.