Washington, Feb 11 (IANS): Reliance India chairman Mukesh Ambani is bullish on both India and the US because of the aspirations of a billion people in one and a fundamental transformation of the energy scene in the other.

"I'm more optimistic than most" India's richest and Asia's second richest man told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview at his 27 storey palatial Mumbai home when asked about his assessment of the world economy five years after the financial crisis began.

Ambani said he was very "bullish" on India despite a slowdown of India's growth to 5.5 percent and foreign investors' complaints about poor infrastructure and lack of reform

"India has had some slow growth, but I'm really very optimistic on India," he said. "I'm very bullish on India, because it's really the aspirations of a billion people. And ours is a country where all the billion count."

"We are on a long-term growth trajectory. And this is just not growth in terms of GDP numbers, right? This really is for well-being of each and every Indian. And that's the aspiration," Ambani said.

Ambani was equally bullish about the US saying, "My view is that this year we will see the beginning of a recovery, particularly in the US" because "There has been a fundamental transformation in the energy scene in the US."

Ambani felt that the US will be independent of foreign imports of energy in the next five or seven years as it "truly found non-conventional energy in shale oil and gas, which is really bringing benefit not only to the population in the US, but really to across the world."

Things were getting better elsewhere too, he said noting "China is maintaining steady growth. It's not decelerating. Europe has found its own transition path, and they will transgress through the financial system in an ordinary way."