Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India and the second-richest in Asia, predicted this week that the United States will be independent of foreign imports of energy in five to seven years.
Such was said during an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS.
FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: Mukesh Ambani hasn't given a television interview in almost a decade. He has never let TV cameras into his 27-story home in Mumbai. Until now. Ambani is the richest man in India, the second richest man in all of Asia. He is the chairman of India’s largest company, Reliance Industries, which his father started in 1980 making textiles. Today their revenues come mostly from energy, though they are making big bets in retail and telecommunications as well.
Tell me, you have a vantage point to look at the global economy. You run India’s largest company. Where do you think we are five years after the financial crisis began?
MUKESH AMBANI: Well, I am more optimistic than most. And my view is that this year we will see the beginning of a recovery, particularly in the U.S.
ZAKARIA: And you think that that's because just the inherent strengths of the U.S. economy?
AMBANI: There has been a fundamental transformation in the energy scene in the U.S. For many decades, we have heard that the U.S. will be independent of foreign imports of energy. Realistically, I can now tell you that it is my judgment that this will happen in the next five or seven years. The U.S. has truly found non-conventional energy in shale oil and gas which is really, really bringing benefit not only to the population in the U.S. but really to across the world.
