Borge Brende, President of the prestigious World Economic Forum, has showered praises on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he said that India now has a significantly enlarged global profile steered by decisive leadership.
He further added that India was a young economy with a lot of potentials and has shown remarkable strength and resilience amidst global slowdown.
Sharing his opinion on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s website, Brende wrote that the stage was set for the country to realize its vision of becoming a five-trillion dollar economy in the next five years and 10-trillion dollar economy in the next decade-and-a-half.
India’s has been a dramatic rise, deserving of the global attention that it has commanded, the WEF chief said. He further added that India, steered by a decisive leadership, is rising to the occasion through a significantly enlarged global profile.
“India’s commitment to renewable energy through voluntary and ambitious renewable power capacity targets, a lead role in the Paris Climate Agreement negotiations and the International Solar Alliance shows its aspiration of becoming a leader in environmental security and climate change mitigation,” said Brende.
He pointed out that India has also expanded its global stature in space exploration through widely celebrated breakthroughs such as its recent lunar mission and its distinction of becoming the fourth country worldwide to shoot down a low-orbit satellite with a missile.
Recognising India’s leadership role in the region, Brende said that India is also more involved in global humanitarian efforts and development initiatives, including infrastructure development in Afghanistan, the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Ashgabat Agreement, the Chabahar port and the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway.
In his article, Brende has mentioned the rise of India’s rank in Global Innovation Index to 52nd spot this year stating that India is one of the few countries to have consecutively improved its rank for nine years. He also appreciated India’s leadership under PM Modi for undertaken groundbreaking structural reforms reflecting its growth ambitions and development priorities.
He wrote, “In the past decade, India has witnessed a mushrooming of start-ups, innovating across domains such as digital payments, online retail, education and software. The number of Indian unicorns has also risen every year.”
“Initiatives aimed at revamping India’s restrictive business regulations have already borne fruit. India’s 65-place leap in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings demonstrates an improved business climate and expounded investor confidence,” wrote WEF president.
Borge Brende also stated that initiatives such as the Ayushman Bharat for universal health coverage in India, the world’s largest LED programme to improve energy efficiency, a sweeping rural electrification drive and a strong push towards broad-based energy access and security through the Ujjwala and Saubhagya schemes, among others, showed India’s ability to devise and implement a reform agenda which balances global aspirations with critical development imperatives at home.
Later speaking at the Indian Economic Summit on Wednesday, Borge Brende, the top most official of World Economic Forum (WEF) said that India can play a crucial role in the development of South Asia and sustainability of global economic growth.
The WEF, which organises the India Economic Summit in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
“India is one of the fastest-growing large economies in the world. The country is also a young economy with a lot of potential and has shown a lot of strength and resilience amid an economic slowdown globally,” Brende said.
He further added that the rise of advanced technologies has the potential to create economic and social value and it can boost the country’s goal of maintaining its growth momentum while attaining greater social inclusion and regional cooperation.
India is very advanced from many developed economies when it comes to the information technology sector, but there is a lot of scope for development in terms of infrastructure, Borge Brende added.
The not-for-profit organization which is committed to improving the state of the world entity by engaging different stakeholders is organising its 33rd India Economic Summit in New Delhi on October 3-4 under the theme — ‘Innovating for India: Strengthening South Asia, Impacting the World’.
More than 800 leaders from 40 countries comprising senior public figures and leading representatives from civil society, arts and culture, science, business and academia is expected to participate in the event.
During the event, artificial intelligence and drones, start-up unicorns, infrastructure, environmental reforms, gender parity, education and South Asia’s economic outlook will be on top of the agenda. The programme will also underline the importance of South Asia’s relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and highlight how the two regions, defined by their demographic and digital dividends, will shape the world’s collective future.