Gautam Adani, founder and chairman of the Adani Group, received the USIBC 2022 Global Leadership Award on September 7. ‘Maximizing the Next 75 Years of US-India Prosperity,’ was the theme of the USIBC’s India Ideas Summit.
While accepting the award, Adani emphasised the importance of strengthening India-US partnerships, highlighting four strategic areas such as climate change, semiconductors, healthcare, defence, and cyber where both India and the US must work together.
“There can be no doubt that, given the fast, evolving, and new emerging global dynamics, the success of the partnership between India and the United States will be one of the most defining relationships of this century, he stated.
Adani stated that the combined value of the two nations’ GDP in 2050 is expected to be a staggering USD 70 trillion dollars, or 35-40% of the global economy. By that year, the combined population of the two countries will be over 2 billion, with a median age of less than 40 years, compared to 44 in Europe and 40 in China.
“When viewed through the lenses of economics and raw consumption power, it is clear that the existing $150 billion in bilateral trade between the United States and India is a mere speck in the ocean. Much more needs to be done “he stated.
According to Adani, the US and India must collaborate in two critical areas: defence and cyber.
“India requires assistance in both of these areas, and we are only scratching the surface at the moment.” “These are two critical areas where our collaborations must span technology transfer in order to build mutual trust,” he said.
He also urged the USIBC to facilitate a broader platform that regularly brings together executives from similar industries on both sides.
Jeff Bezos, founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon; Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google; Adena Friedman, President and CEO of Nasdaq; Fred Smith, Founder and Chairman of FedEx Corporation; and Uday Kotak, CEO of Kotak Mahindra were previous recipients of this award.