Well, thanks for tuning in to day three of the World Economic Forum coverage in Davos on the NDTV Network, and it's an absolute delight to be talking to Dr. Anish Shah. Needs no introduction of course, but would be lovely to understand from him how is he seeing the atmosphere, the optimism or the lack of it, and the mood in the 2.0 era. Dr. Shah, thanks for joining in. The day one was obsessed with what Donald Trump might or might not say and do. He brought out the uncertainty factor for sure by saying that hey, tariffs are coming, but let's wait and watch. Here, how do you see the mood here at the WEF when it comes to growth and outlook for 2025 and your own view, of course?
Good morning, here with you, thank you. Based on discussions with various global CEOs, we see much more optimism than I would have expected, and that optimism is coming from the fact that the US economy is likely to be further on the upswing. That's driven by many of the actions that President Trump will take. Yes, there will be some issues with regard to tariffs, some level of deglobalization as well, but there will be bilateral deals, and that's one of the areas that countries will look forward to. So on balance, we see a much greater level of optimism with regard to the global economy.
Okay, what's your own sense here? Because you are present in the US, so US economy doing great is good for you. I mean, US exceptionalism, third year in a row, who knows, it'll be great for you, but you also have such a large, I mean, larger presence in India too. How does all of this augur for growth in 2025 from your perspective?
So we are very optimistic. We see the US as an important market. We've been manufacturing tractors there for the last 25 years, and we've got a very good position in the tractor space that we play in the US. In addition, Tech Mahindra is well positioned there. We've got a lot less dependence on H1B visas, and therefore we're ready to grow in the US. India has great fundamentals, and India will add as much GDP globally as will the EU by 2030. So we're seeing this market as a very important one, and we're driving our growth ambitions in India.
All right, what do you feel about the first three quarters? If I can call it a lull, so to say, relative to what we've seen in the past, is it a pause before an uplift? Is it possible to even predict that, or is it a wait-and-watch approach when it comes to the Indian economy per se? And again, what is it that you hear from your counterparties that you speak to who might be investing into India through you?
So we believe the fundamentals are very strong. We will always have some blips along the way. We saw rural being weaker for the last year or maybe 18 months. Rural's come back fairly well now. So we will continue to see some pockets have some level of weakness, but that's par for the course, that nothing's going to work in one straight line. But the fundamentals are strong, the path forward looks very good, and in terms of what we hear from folks around the world, they're looking at India even with a greater degree of urgency than I've seen before.
Wow, so I mean, some of this would be helpful for the tech businesses that you run, though. Interestingly, this whole H1B visa and green card news coming by the way, does it have a material impact on the tech sector employees or is it now a lot of hire local for the US and offshoring might be a little less than what it used to be? Any thoughts?
I think it's too early to say. We'll have to see how this develops. I just saw that 18 states have filed lawsuits against it as well, so I think there's a long way to go before we get the final outcome as to what will happen.
Okay, fair call. A bit of a focus on auto naturally, because you're creating quite a ripple in the markets with the kind of products that you're launching and the kind of pricing. Dr. Shah, now a lot of people are saying, my own analyst calls this a daring strategy wherein you are daring the market that, hey, I'm coming on with a product which is priced at a punchy level, come and try and see if you can disrupt my sales. Now, I'd love to know what went behind that thought on the pricing, because we've spoken on the product before, we haven't spoken quite on the product and the pricing together.
