New Delhi
CNN Business
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Indian billionaire Gautam Adani says China “feels particularly isolated” and will find it difficult to emerge from its economic weakness, a “leading champion of globalisation”.
At a conference in Singapore on Tuesday, Adani said that “rising nationalism, reduced supply chain risk and technological restrictions” as well as opposition to Beijing’s massive Belt and Road initiative will harm China’s global role.
Asia’s richest man says the “housing and credit risks” in the world’s second-largest economy are drawing comparisons to what hit the Japanese economy in the ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s.
It was less than a month before Adani became the world’s third richest businessman, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is the first Asian to hold that position.
The founder of the eponymous Adani Group controls companies ranging from ports to power.
While pessimistic about China, Adani is bullish about his own country, saying India is “one of the few places that has a relatively bright spot from a political, geostrategic and market perspective.”
In the year By 2030, India is expected to become the world’s third largest economy, with “the largest consuming middle class in the world”.
Some tech companies looking to reduce their reliance on Chinese manufacturing see India as an attractive option.
On Monday, Apple announced that it has started manufacturing the new iPhone 14 in India. While the company manufactures most of its products in China, it has decided to manufacture its latest devices in India much earlier than previous generations.
Businesses have had to pull out of China not only because of tighter bans on visas that have affected supply chains for months, but also because of rising tensions between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan.
The US government ordered two of America’s top chip makers to stop selling high-performance chips to China earlier this month. And last week, the leaders of America’s biggest banks said they could withdraw if China attacked Taiwan.
Adani cited the challenges facing the UK and countries in the EU as a result of the war in Ukraine and Brexit.
“While I expect all of these economies will adjust over time — and bounce back — the backlash seems very severe at this point,” he said.
