India's 100 richest share a fourth of the country's GDP: Forbes
19 Nov 2009
The fortunes of India's richest citizens got a fresh boost from a resurgent stock market that gained two-thirds in the past year on the back of an economy growing at 6 per cent, the `Forbes' India Rich List' showed.
The combined net worth of India's 100 richest people is $276 billion, which is almost a quarter of the country's GDP. The number of billionaires, has almost doubled to 52 from 27 of last year at the peak of the stock market boom, according to the Forbes List.
The head of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani is again the wealthiest Indian with an estimated net worth of $32 billion, up 54 per cent from $21 billion last year.
Trailing behind Ambani are Lakshmi Mittal, with net worth of $30 billion - up 46 per cent from $20.5 billion - and Mukesh's estranged brother Anil whose net worth of $17.5 billion is 40 per cent higher than before.
According to Naazneen Karmali, India Editor of Forbes Asia and Mumbai bureau manager for Forbes magazine, happy days were definitely back again for India's richest and this year's list showed yet again that when conditions in the financial markets and the economy are right, India has the scale and resources to produce billionaires faster than most other countries.
Indrajit Gupta, Editor of Forbes India, said, the substantial jump in net worth was clear evidence that entrepreneurial capitalism was alive and kicking in India and what was more, the growth in wealth creation has been broad-based with entrepreneurs from a wide variety of sectors making it to the list.
Even as the top ten positions have remained largely unchanged, a number of shifts at various rungs of the pecking order have occurred. Sunil Mittal has moved down from the fourth spot to the eighth spot, while the Ruia brothers with a net worth of $13.6 billion have made it to the fifth spot this year. Adi Godrej has exited the top 10 to the twelfth position while Savitri Jindal, non-executive chairwoman of O P Jindal Group, with a net worth of $12 billion this year is at the seventh position on the list. Jindal is one among six women in the list.
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