Strongly Advocated for Full and Fast Implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information Within the Agreed Timeframe and on a Global Scale Which Would Help India to Trace Transactions of Money Illegally Earned or Stashed in Foreign Banks Without Paying Appropriate Taxes 

The Minister of State for Finance Shri Jayant Sinha attended the G-20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Istanbul, Turkey on 9th and 10th February ,2015. It was the First Finance Ministers’ Meeting under the Turkish Presidency.

During his interventions in different Sessions, Shri Jayant Sinha, MoS (Finance) highlighted the following:

A very high priority needs to be given to investment including investment in Infrastructure to achieve G20`s collective growth objective. This should be done through taking policy measures to improve business environment, mobilization of resources of multilateral banks and their technical expertise, facilitation of long term financing from institutional investors and use of new financial models to promote infrastructure as an asset class. India called for early operationalization of the Global Infrastructure Hub which has been set up following the last G-20 Summit for the development of a knowledge sharing platform and to improve investment as sought by Prime Minister at Brisbane. Minister also emphasized the need for improving the quality of public investment processes including PPP models to attract further investment which will act as a boost for growth of the economy and create the jobs we need.

In the discussions on the global economy, the Minister of State for Finance Shri Jayant Sinha expressed his concern over the unconventional monetary policies adopted by a number of advanced economies and have emphasized the need for having an effective mechanism to deal with negative spillovers that may arise due to these policies or due to unexpected and disorderly withdrawal of these policies in future. India called for strengthening the IMF through implementing the 2010 quota and governance reforms and creating an environment for multilateral swaps to overcome such negative impact. The G20 Ministers have in their communique agreed to carefully calibrate and clearly communicate their monetary policy settings, assess major risk scenarios in the global economy and cooperate to manage spillovers arising from domestic policies.

The Minister of State for Finance, Shri Jayant Sinha who made the lead intervention on Tax issues, very strongly advocated for full and fast implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information within the agreed timeframe and on a global scale including by all financial centres. This would help India to trace transactions of money illegally earned or stashed in foreign banks without paying appropriate taxes in the countries where those transactions took place. India also called for addressing the concerns of developing countries while implementing the base erosion and profit shifting initiative and preparation of toolkits to assist them for effective implementation.

The Minister of State for Finance, Shri Jayant Sinha in his intervention on Financial Regulation stated that for promotion of innovation, it is critical to create an ecosystem for unlocking the domestic capital for funding start ups on parity with the best centres. India has taken steps to promote domestic venture capitalists and looks forward to sharing best practices in this regard.

Automatic Exchange of Information urged to enhance tax transparency and trace undeclared cross border funds globally. A very high priority should be given to mobilising investment, notably infrastructure, via policy reforms, multilateral bank support, long term institutional financing and new financial models, with early operationalisation of the Global Infrastructure Hub and improved PPP and public investment processes. Concerns about spillovers from unconventional monetary policies prompted calls to strengthen IMF governance and multilateral swap arrangements. Strong advocacy for global, rapid implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information to trace undeclared offshore funds was made, alongside requests for developing country support on base erosion and profit shifting; measures to unlock domestic capital for startups and promote venture capital were also urged.