'Picture abhi baaki hai': Blackstone top honcho Jonathan Gray on India’s bright economic prospects

NEW DELHI: Global private equity giant Blackstone believes India’s economy has all the ingredients for long term success as it counts amongst its strengths the world’s second largest pool of English language speakers, generates five times more engineers every year than the USA and has rock-bottom wage costs.

“Picture abhi baaki hai”, said Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s top honcho while addressing a gathering of distinguished guests comprising global CEO’s and top Indian law makers at The Economic Times Global Business Summit on Friday.

Gray praised the current political dispensation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular for reforms and positive macro-economy indicators highlighting that the best was yet to come for India.


“This government has actually worked to accelerate growth and create jobs", Gray said pointing to developments such as the introduction of the insolvency and bankruptcy code as positive developments for the country.

Gray pointed to growth in infrastructure spending to about 10% of GDP and slowing of inflation to a manageable level of 2% annually as positive indicators for India’s economy.

“We thank the Modi administration for all these reforms”, Gray said, adding that Blackstone would continue to accelerate its investments in India where it had already pumped in over $10 billion.

Gray downplayed fears of a slowdown in global growth pointing to positive trends in the US in sectors such as housing, banking and consumer goods sales as signs that the economy was doing well despite the federal reserve raising rates, fears of trade tensions between the US and China and the impact of Brexit.