Slowdown temporary, opportunity ahead: RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani

Riyadh: Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani expressed confidence that a string of reforms introduced by the government in the last few months will soon boost the Indian economy. “The current slowdown is temporary,” Ambani said at the opening plenary of the third edition of Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh on Tuesday. “The world is transiting with introduction of new technologies - they are transforming global economy, and while they bring uncertainty, they also bring opportunity,” Ambani said.

Earlier, delivering the opening address of the three-day event, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, said, “Till now, Future Investment Initiative has been an annual conference, today it is an institution... it will be a global hub to build relationships.” In the first year of FII in 2017, participants mainly came from the Americas, Europe and Middle East, Al-Rumayyan said. “Today they are coming from Japan, China, India, Russia…all united in a spirit of collaboration.”

“I think we are all dealing with uncertainty more than before in terms of technology…the internet (and) social media are making it difficult to manage companies and countries,” Blackstone Group founder Stephen Schwarzman said at the opening plenary.


Goldman Sachs group chairman John Waldron said, “Our relationship with clients has changed a lot - focus on capital spend is shifting from more traditional areas to more innovation, computing, AI.”