Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Thursday, 24 June, conducted its 44th Annual General Meeting (AGM). The event is conducted annually and attracts thousand of investors and shareholders.
Like last year, this year also, the event was conducted in the online mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was live-streamed on Jio's official YouTube channel and social media handles. The company announced its various ongoing and upcoming projects in the meeting.
Reliance AGM 2021: Highlights
- Nita Ambani, Founder and chairperson of Reliance Foundation announced the launch of five missions to fight COVID-19. These include Mission Employee Care, Vaccine Suraksha, Anna Seva, Mission Oxygen, and COVID Infra.
- Chairman and MD of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani commenced the event by remembering the people who lost their lives due to the coronavirus pandemic. He also talked about the humanitarian efforts of Reliance during the pandemic.
- He further added that RIL's business grew despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. The company added 75,000 new jobs last year, Ambani said.
Partnership With Saudi Aramco
Mukesh Ambani announced the joining of Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Chairman of Saudi Aramco, as the independent director of RIL. Continued engagement between both the companies even during the pandemic shows their strong relationship, he added. Ambani also stated that he expected their partnership to be formalised this year.
RIL's Transition to Green Energy
Mukesh Ambani also talked about RIL's transition to green energy. The work on the development of Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex on 5,000 acres in Jamnagar has already started, Ambani said. He also added that over the course of three years, the company will invest a total of Rs 60,000 crore in the end-to-end renewable energy ecosystem. RIL will also invest Rs 15,000 crore in value chain, partnerships and future technologies, including upstream and downstream industries, taking the total investment in New Energy business to Rs 75,000 crore in three years.
JioPhone Next
India's leading telecom company Jio has partnered up with Google to develop the world's most affordable smartphone 'JioPhone Next', said Mukesh Ambani. The phone will be available form 10 September 2021, he added.
Google-Reliance to Work on 5G
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet (Google's parent company), also took part in RIL's AGM through video conferencing. He announced the 5G partnership between Google Cloud and Reliance Jio.
Integration of WhatsApp & JioMart
Reliance has collaborated with Facebook, and is doing a trial run to integrate WhatsApp and JioMart.
JioFibre
"JioFiber has acquired over 2 million new premises over past year," said Mukesh Ambani. He further added that with a cumulative base of 3 million active users, JioFibre has become India's fastest growing broadband operator.
Reliance has added 1,500 new retail stores. This addition has taken the total store count to 12,711, Ambani said.
Towards the end of the event, Mukesh Ambani mentioned that RIL invested $90 billion in creating substantial wealth for the nation and value for shareholders. "In the coming decade, Reliance has capacity to catalyse investments of over $200 billion directly and through partners," he added.
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