India will come out of COVID crisis with flying colours: Deloitte CEO

India will come out of the COVID-19 crisis that has impacted the entire world with flying colours, Deloitte CEO Punit Renjen has said, asserting that the 21st century is “India’s century.”

Renjen said the Indian government has performed well in addressing the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is India’s century and I’m convinced about it,” the 60-year-old prominent Indian-American business leader said.

“I am certainly a little biased given my (Indian) heritage but I’m convinced this is India’s century because of just the raw talent that exists in India, the number of people that comprise India, the democratic tradition that has been around for 75 years,” he said.

Renjen said the pandemic impacted India very hard, given the lockdown that the government had to put in place, given the size of the population and what the virus potentially could do to India.

The Rohtak-born Indian-American CEO, who has been heading Deloitte since 2015, described as “remarkable” a recent report from the International Monetary Fund which projected 12.5 per cent growth rate for the country.

“Nobody can say with precision, but I really believe India is going to come out of this pandemic growing at the fastest rate;… definitely the fastest large economy,” he said.