New Delhi, Aug 14(PTI): The government has denied reports of an international Chinese media that claimed that China is printing massive amount of foreign currency notes including India.
“Reports about any Chinese currency printing corporation getting any orders for printing Indian currency notes are totally baseless. Indian currency notes are being and will be printed only in Indian Govt and RBI currency presses,” Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) secretary Subhash Chandra Garg told ANI.
The South China Morning Post had reported that there has been a recent surge in printing of notes in money production plants across the country.
Quoting multiple sources in the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, the report said that these plants were “running at near full capacity to meet an unusually high quota set by the government this year.”
“Most of the demand comes from participants in the Belt and Road Initiative,” the report further added.
Referring to president of the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation Liu Guisheng's article the report said that, two years after the launch of the belt and road plan (2013), the company “successfully won contracts” for currency production projects in a host of countries including Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, Brazil and Poland.
Congres leader Shashi Tharoor has expressed his concerns that the news, if true, could have national security implications.
It may be recalled that India's banks received an all-time high amount of fake currency and also detected an over 480 percent jump in suspicious transactions post demonetisation, a first-ever report on dubious deposits made in the wake of the 2016 notes ban revealed in April this year.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), that analyses suspicious financial transactions pertaining to money laundering and terror financing as part of the Union Finance Ministry establishment, reported that counterfeit currency transactions in the banking and other economic channels witnessed an increase by over 3.22 lakh instances during 2016-17 as compared to the last year.