Billionaire Ray Dalio says India’s moon landing is another sign of its ‘ascendence’—and predicts stellar growth for its economy


Steve Mollman
Sat, August 26, 2023

Billionaire Ray Dalio believes India is the next big investment opportunity. The nation’s historic moon landing this week only strengthened his conviction.

On Wednesday, India successfully landed a spacecraft on the lunar south pole, thought to be the moon’s richest region for water. Just days earlier, Russia had failed in its attempt to become the first country to land a craft there.

India’s rover will now look for water, which could be a source of oxygen and fuel for future missions—or lead to a moon colony.

“This success belongs to all of humanity,” Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said during a webcast of the event.

“India's successful lunar mission…is another one of many straws in the wind showing its ascendence,” wrote Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, in a post on X.

He noted that India tops his “health index for countries”—where he projects 10-year growth rates for nations—with an estimated 7% growth rate.

India has “the right mix of ingredients that shows that it has great potential and the right leadership to catalyze it,” he added.

In June, Dalio described Modi as “a man whose time has come when India’s time has also come. He and India are in an analogous position to Deng Xiaoping and China in the early 1980s—i.e., at the brink of the fastest growth rates and biggest transformations in the world.”

With tensions simmering between the U.S. and China, he noted, Modi is “in a unique position to influence the complexion of the world order via influencing the non-aligned world's dealings with these two leading world powers. I believe that Modi has what it takes to have the greatest impact on the largest number of people in the world at a time that the risks of harmful impact are greater than at any time in our lifetimes.”

Dalio is somewhat less enthusiastic about China these days. While he’s invested billions into Chinese companies, he said earlier this month that it’s time for China to “engineer” a massive restructuring of its debt. But “there isn’t a country I know of that hasn’t done this, typically several times,” he noted.

Meanwhile some big names share Dalio’s enthusiasm for India. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently said his electric-vehicle maker would establish a presence in the nation “as soon as humanly possible.” And Goldman Sachs predicted last month that India would become the world’s second-largest economy by 2075, surpassing the U.S.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

UPDATE 1-

Chinese minister says India free to join RCEP trade bloc

Reuters

Fri, August 25, 2023 

NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (Reuters) - India is free to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), China's Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said on Friday in New Delhi, adding that it would boost trade between India and China which is growing "very fast".

The RCEP is the world's largest trade bloc backed by China and groups 15 Asia-Pacific economies, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Relations have soured between the two nuclear-armed neighbours after clashes at a disputed border site in Ladakh in the western Himalayas resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers in June 2020.

Shouwen, speaking during a discussion at the 'Business 20 summit' of G20 member nations, said it was India's decision whether to join the RCEP and that the door was "always open".

India's Trade Minister Piyush Goyal, who chaired the discussion, said trade between India and China is growing but "largely skewed in China's favour".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to China's President Xi Jinping about India's concerns over unresolved border issues on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg this week.

Both sides agreed to intensify efforts to disengage and de-escalate, India's foreign secretary told reporters on Thursday.

Xi told Modi that improving China-India relations served the interests of the two countries and was conducive to peace, stability, and development, according to China's official Xinhua news agency, which said the meeting was at Modi's request. (Reporting by Shivangi Acharya; Writing by Shivam Patel; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)