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India pitches strongly for fight against fugitive economic offenders
Osaka, Jun 30, 2019 (BSS/PTI) – India has pitched strongly to deal with
fugitive economic offenders, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has flagged the
issue at all global forums, the country’s Sherpa to G20 Suresh Prabhu said
Saturday.
“We strongly put forward the need for to deal with fugitive economic
offenders. It has been a strong agenda, we have been working on tax evasion,
corruption, economic offences and fugitive offenders running away (from the
country). We have also been very strongly championing this,” Prabhu told a
media conference, detailing about the deliberations of the meeting.
He said that Prime Minister Modi has raised these issues at all global
forums.
“We strongly feel that we as a global community must act in unison to deal
with such issues of people committing economic offences and running away from
their national domicile country,” he told reporters post G20 Sherpa’s
meeting.
On the query that why India didn’t join the Osaka declaration on digital
economy, Prabhu said the reasons have been communicated to the Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe.
But, he also clarified that India strongly believes in digital economy and
has taken host of measures, including a huge number of bank accounts to
thrust its digital agenda.
“India has a very massive programme on digital transactions. We have opened
bank accounts of a large number of people. Many transactions are happening
through the digital forms,” he said.
Prabhu, who was the Railways minister in the first term of the NDA
government, also informed that the country’s railways has almost 8.1 billion
passengers per year, and many of them buy tickets through digital platforms.
“So, digital is something which we all believe in, we have a market which is
growing including the e-commerce market. Therefore, we believe in that
digital economy and also at the same time we have a very close relationship
with our dear friend Japan but we have already communicated the reasons to
them,” Prabhu said.
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Among others issues that India raised during the summit were on climate
change, clean energy, environment protection, agriculture, tourism and
systemic shift towards providing social security and financial benefits for
the ageing population.
Prabhu said India also put emphasis on building a quality infrastructure that
is a necessity for growth.
He also said that infusion of technology in all sphere of life will create
economic opportunities for all as well as bridge the digital divide, and
improve the quality of life.
“For that, quality infrastructure will play a very important role. In
economy, finance will be an important issue and therefore issues related to
global finance whether it is related to sustainable and modern tax system,
whether related to technological innovation which can deliver benefits in
financial markets…all these issues were also discussed,” he told reporters.
Prabhu said India’s Prime Minister Modi has been championing that “we need
anti-corruption measures at global level. So, fight against corruption should
be done at all levels by all the G20 members by combating foreign bribery and
ensure each G20 country has a law to enforce it, that people committing
economic crimes in one geography will not be able to run away to the other
and escape the clutches of law”.
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