Davos 2023: India gained from US-China tensions, says Airtel’s Sunil Mittal at WEF

Bharti Enterprises Founder and Chairman Sunil Mittal, who is at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, said that India definitely benefitted on the technology front from the brewing tensions between the US and China. 

While responding to supply chain constraints, Mittal said India has been pushing very hard on the manufacturing-side to become a manufacturing base, “especially the electronics field, the digital parts”. 

“We import $715 billion worth of electronic parts. So, that is an opportunity that we missed seven decades back. And we, it seemed, would not see [the same opportunity] during our lifetime. This particular issue now has forced India to sort of become ready and put out subsidies and programs, which have never been seen before,” the Bharti Enterprises Chairman said. 

Mittal added that semiconductors have become a huge rallying point between the US, UK, and the entire Quad as a result of the rift between the US and China. 

“India is now committed to spend a huge amount of money, we’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in the 5-10 years to finally attract the semiconductor base into India, which we could never build over the last several decades,” he said. 

He added: “So, I would say India is benefitting, definitely, because the US wants a lot of things to be shifted from China to India. Trusted nations, trusted sources and trusted products are becoming the mantra all over.”  

The US-China trade war started in 2018 when former US president Donald Trump started to impose tariffs on Chinese goods. It all started with Meng Wanzhou’s, the chief financial officer of China's Huawei Technologies, arrest on charges of bank fraud and more. 

Not only that. Trump changed how the US treated China. Characterising China as an economic competitor, he imposed heavy tariffs on Chinese goods coming into this country. After coming to power, US president Joe Biden has not only kept those tariffs in place, but he has also imposed export controls and visa limits as well as restrictions on investment flows. 

Mittal, while speaking at the panel at Davos WEF 2023, said that Airtel had been using Chinese equipment in its network, but the company is working to replace it. He said that 20 per cent of Airtel’s network was currently using Huawei and ZTE technology on the radio-side, which is being replaced now.  

He added that Airtel’s 5G push did not include any Chinese tech and its usage was declining on the 2G and 4G front too.

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