Black money: A whopping $123 bn lost by Indian economy, says Global Financial Integrity

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PTI: Washington, Dec 18 2012, 12:29 IST

India lost a whopping USD 123 billion in black money in 2001-2010, making it the eight largest victim of illicit financial outflow, a US-based research and advocacy organisation said in a report.

However, India's black money loss of USD 123 in 10 years is far less that China, which according to the report suffered a loss of USD 2.74 trillion during the same period (2001 to 2010), followed by Mexico (USD 476 billion), Malaysia (USD 285 billion), Saudi Arabia (USD 201 billion), Russia (USD 152 billion), the Philippines (USD 138 billion) and Nigeria (USD 129 billion).

India is the eight largest victim of black money loses, said the report 'Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2001-2010,' released by Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

India is the only South Asian country to figure in the top 20 list of such nations.

In 2010 alone, the Indian economy suffered USD 1.6 billion in illicit financial outflows.

"USD 123 billion is a massive amount of money for the Indian economy to lose," said Dev Kar, GFI lead economist and co-author of the report.

"It has very real consequences for Indian citizens. This is more than USD 100 billion which could have been used to invest in education, healthcare, and upgrade the nation's infrastructure. Perhaps last summer's electrical blackout would have been avoided if some of this money had remained in India and been used to invest in the nation's power grid," he said.

While progress has been made in recent years, India continues to lose a large amount of wealth in

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Mohammad Yusuf Advani. Gadag (India) | 21-Dec-2012Reply | Forward

The black money of Indian account holders in Swiss bank and other tax haven foreign banks amounts to Rs. 27.96 lakhs crores in 2008 and now reached Rs.lakhs crores.Therefore,there is an outflow of Rs.24.96 lakhs crores in just three years. Reports says Indian economy suffered $1.6 billion in 2010 alone.Financial Intelligence Unit ( India is also one of the member among 131 nations)is an independent body which reporting directly to Economic Intelligence Council headed by Finance Minister. FIU's main function is to monitor & identify strategic keys area of money laundering other financial crimes. We have RBI,SEBI,IRDA as regulatory bodies with enormous powers to track withe these illicit financial outflow.India's black money in foreign banks became a focal point for debate all these years. The DEBATE and illicit MONEY out flow will continue un-abated. MERA BHARAT MAHAN.

legal laundering is mindboggling

alok sharma | 19-Dec-2012Reply | Forward

But according to my calculation India is legally incurring whooping loss of $400 billion a year or 32 times of illegal outgo by not using cheaper swadeshi or indigenous stuffs and services in place of costly imports. Re exports and made in India stuffs of foreign companies are welcome as both provide inland employment and former gives us forex. So I will plead every Indian to reduce inland use of oil, gas, bullion, tech, foreign grown foods and foreign made stuffs. Kindly replace costly foreign tours and services by cheaper Indian destinations and services. For example if we replace inland use of LPG and kerosene worth Rs 2.5 lac crore or 50 billion dollars a year by solar we can save frorex of same amount each year. Illegal transfer of $123 billion in a decade is highly deplorable but if we focus on legal transfer as use of costly imports in favor of cheaper indigenous all problems can solve in fraction of a second and our nation can be united.

Too small to be true

C S JACOB | 18-Dec-2012Reply | Forward

The amount lost at $ 123 bn, though large, when related to the GDP for the ten year period comes to just one percent. Considering the rampant corruption one sees in everyday life it is too small to be true. The estimation appears to be faulty.