While addressing the Qatar Economic Forum, the Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mukesh Ambani stated that for the global economy industry, governments, and civil society must work as a coalition.
He also spoke about the major challenges for the industry as the world trying to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mukesh Ambani further added, “Well, I think that one of the challenges is to make sure that we get rid of the vaccination divide. The bulk of the developed world must be vaccinated by the end of the year. I think we in India have taken a lot many steps, and we expect that by the end of this year or by the first quarter of next year, we will do very well. We have to make sure that we
are in this all together”.
"The second challenge for all of us, particularly in the more developed countries, is to make sure that we bring back the economies, which have not had the benefit of stimulus, which have not had the benefit of government money, by really supporting the whole global economy to come back and grow," Ambani said.
"We must be able to grow the whole world sustainably and not only bring back the developed economies. And towards that all of us -- the industry, governments, and civil society -- will have to work as a coalition, not only for our own company, not only for our own country but for the global economy," Ambani added.
Upon asked how business has changed post the pandemic, he said "I think that trade along with purpose and compassion is the way forward. And that is going to get all of us, as humanity, together to integrate and make sure that collectively we can deal with global problems as one, and help each other moving forward. To my mind, this for the global economy is a fork in the road, and gives us an opportunity that together we can achieve a lot more."
On digitalization, Ambani said that connectivity and communication have become necessities like food, clothing, and shelter, and fundamental rights of humankind.
"We never realized this as acutely as we did in the corona pandemic. Even in India, our Prime Minister had given a call for Digital India, and I was privileged, with our digital services company called Jio, to roll out a 4G network. We were lucky that we rolled out the network across the length and breadth of India by 2018. We have always wondered what we could have done without a 4G network across India in facing the corona crisis.
"So yes, the digital infrastructure was very useful in work from home, in vaccinating all our people, in making sure that our children learn at home and learn online. And I think that this trend of digital-physical will be the new normal and in the future, we will deliver most of our health and education services in a digital-physical sense," Ambani said.
On sustainability in business, he said that as a society or as a business, it is imperative to adopt the sustainable business model. Embracing the model of clean energy is essential for growth, and to ensure that Reliance Industries have adopted the change whole-heartedly and is trying to transform each of our businesses to be sustainable, circular, recyclable, and fully transparent with the environment, social, and governance standards.
I think that is a prerequisite for every business to survive as we go forward. It will mean transforming our businesses and integrating them with the future”, he further added.
