Leading investor Mark Mobius has said India has outperformed US markets and emerging markets are growing on average twice the rate of developed economies.
In conversation with investor Ramesh Damani at the NDTV World Summit on Monday, Mr Mobius said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on digital infrastructure and opening up the economy has been crucial to India’s growth.
Mr Mobius, who is the founder of Mobius Capital Partners LLP and known as the ‘Indiana Jones of emerging market investing’, said, “I always think of India as the United States of America, because there are different states. This is the mind-boggling – you are speaking different languages and even the written languages are different. The first thing he (PM Modi) did was to change the tax system. It’s an incredible achievement.”
The investor said that India’s diversity is the result of incredible creativity and the future belongs to those who are creative.
“I definitely think India is going to be the leader or the leader in semiconductor production in the future. One reason I say that is the demand – you’ve got a market here that is one of the largest in the world. Secondly, it is a relatively open economy, so you will be able to take technology from Taiwan, China, the United States, anywhere, thirdly, you already have an incredible software industry, you are the largest exporter of software in the world.” Many large semiconductor companies already have software bases in India, Mobius said.
The investor said semiconductor manufacturing will happen in India because the country has the labor force.
“I remember meeting an Indian friend of mine a few years ago and I said that India will become a big semiconductor manufacturer. He said that Indians are not as patient and not as good at small things as the Chinese And I asked him if he saw the places where they are cutting these small diamonds in India, they would do very well here, no question about it, but it would require a huge amount of capital .
In terms of returns on capital, it’s “India, China and the US”, Mr Mobius said, adding that India still presents plenty of opportunities despite climbing stock prices.
As the conversation moved on to lighter topics, the investor said he liked ‘Baahubali’ movies and also took a picture with a statue of the Hyderabadi movie villain.
