Hindustan Unilever (HUL) Chairman Nitin Paranjpe on June 26 addressed the annual general meeting of the fast-moving consumer goods major in which he said with a growing young population, India is witnessing a significant rise in consumption and that the nations’ growth in recent years has primarily been productivity-led.

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According to Paranjpe, India is the ‘silver lining’ in a challenging era marked by low growth, low investment and low cooperation.

He believes five factors that will help the country in its growth journey include a young workforce, rising consumption, enviable digital infrastructure, quest to become a favoured investment destination and a growing culture of innovation and enterprise.

India is well poised to lead the digital revolution and is set to overtake the US in a couple of years with booming online shoppers.

However, the HUL chairman also reflected on the challenges that the Indian economy needs to address and highlighted that employment has only increased marginally in the last 5-10 years. “As a nation, we need to ensure a significant increase in both formal employment and enhanced livelihood opportunities to ensure the productive deployment of our young workforce,” he said in his speech titled ‘Transforming to Win in the New India.’

He also stressed on the importance of increasing women participation in the workforce. The other areas to focus on as a nation were creating a healthy society, ensuring sustainable and equitable growth and boosting the country’s human development index, he noted.

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Paranjpe added that HUL has been transforming to stay in step with a fast-changing India and will contribute towards the nation’s growth journey.

Meanwhile, the outgoing CEO and MD Sanjiv Mehta pointed out that the last decade had its fair share of challenges and his firm navigated the storms, made itself stronger, agile, nimbler and ensured that its returns to shareholders surpassed the FMCG index.

“My confidence in HUL stems from exceptional talent in the management committee,” he said, as he welcomed Rohit Jawa to succeed him as MD and CEO from June 27.

He also asserted that this is India's decade and that he is a big believer of the India story.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)