Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani has, according to the reports, become the richest individual in Asia. A spurt in the RIL shares by 1.6 percent on Friday enabled Mukesh Ambani to topple China’s Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma as the richest person from the Asian continent. The estimated total wealth of Mukesh Ambani went up to $44.3 billion on Friday, while that of the Alibaba founder Jack Ma stayed at $44 billion. This success by the RIL chairman is a surely a positive sign of the booming Indian economy. China’s market even though it is larger in size seems to have achieved the stagnation point. Jack Ma has lost more than $1.4 billion in 2018, which is indicative of how the Chinese market has operated and will operate in the years to come. Alibaba is the biggest e-commerce platform in China, at times it has been thought of to be a bigger chain than Amazon which operates on a global basis. Alibaba Group benefits from the strict trade policies in China which do not allow companies from other countries to operate freely.
China’s policies of boosting trade and industrialisation have been controversial to say the least. State backed private organisations have made names for themselves globally by landing big projects and entering into huge deals. The Chinese government used to subsidise and back up the private limited companies through monetary and other measures. The bubble of China’s stature seems to be bursting sooner rather than later and it is happening simultaneously in many spheres. While many “development” projects run by Chinese companies both inside and outside the country are left abandoned, unfinished and Chinese banks facing problems owing to staggering debts. European football clubs which had been bought by Chinese owners are facing tough challenges owing to lack of resources and there have been talks of their ownership being snatched away from the Chinese owing to issues in repayment of debt.
India and its economy, on the other hand, has been growing at a steady pace, the problems of debt are not as deep in India as they are in our neighbour. Indian business houses have also benefited from the beneficial policies set by the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Policies like IBC and Fugitive Economic Offenders ordinance have done wonders in creating a responsible yet beneficial atmosphere for businesses. This means that clean and efficient business practices manage to survive in the long run in India, which strengthens the economy. There is little doubt then that in the coming days more and more Indian business tycoons would show up in the list beating Chinese and even European businessmen in the coming days. Of course, the richest Indian and now Asian, Mukesh Ambani, has benefited from his telecom startup Jio Infocomm Ltd. And from doubling its petrochemical capacity but this is not the only company which has risen in the past few years. Many more Indian companies are slowly climbing up the ladder and challenging businesses in terms of efficiency and profits, from Asian markets to the rest of the world.
