India has potential for very rapid economic growth, says Bill Gates

Bill Gates specifically complimented India's Aadhaar identity system and the country's performance in the financial services and pharma sectors. World's richest person shared his opinion in an exclusive interview to Press Trust of India (PTI),

"I don't have any knowledge about the near term, but I'd say over the next decade, there's potential for very rapid growth, which will lift people out of poverty and allow the government to invest in health and education priorities in a really exciting way," said the billionaire philanthropist, reported the Hindustan Times.

India is Asia's third largest economy. The positive outlook by Gates for the Indian economy, comes at a time when it is reeling under major slowdown amid apprehensions that the cycle may last for a longer period.

"Everybody hopes that there's really good growth because the potential is certainly there for India to have high growth," said Gates.

Gates is currently on a three-day visit to India to review the work of his foundation in the country.

India's economic growth slumped to an over six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter ending June this fiscal due to slower consumer demand and private investment. The slump in growth has prompted many global agencies to cut India's GDP growth by various degrees for 2019-20.

Bill Gates also hailed India's Aadhaar identification system as well as adoption of the UPI system.

"Well, in all of our areas, India's been a key place where we find innovators and financial services. It's fantastic the way that the Aadhaar identity system and the overall UPI system is gaining adoption, and there's some great lessons out of that work. We partner with people like Nandan Nilekani to think, okay, how do the lessons from India apply to other countries for things like digital identity or financial services," he said.

Gates also complimented India's pioneering work in vaccine manufacturing, saying the country has made impactful contribution in improving peoples' lives.

"When people think of India, they think of the IT services and the great work done there. Less visible but certainly very impactful for improving the human condition is the great work done by the vaccine manufacturers, whether it's Serum, who's the largest, but a dozen others - Bharat Biotech, Bio-E, a number of companies," he further added.

the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been working in areas of health-care, sanitation, agriculture and financial services for the underprivileged people for the last one decade in India.

The foundation's partnerships with Indian manufacturers have led to development of affordable efficacious vaccines which has enabled different countries to introduce these vaccines, said an official of the foundation.