In a report dated 10 Oct 2011, Sanjeev Prasad, Sunita Baldawa and Amit Kumar of Kotak, unearthed the possible export-scam amounting to even more than combined 2G, mines and all other scams.
The report said that in between 2008-09 and 2010-11, exports to the Bahamas jumped to $2.2 billion from $2.2 million. Yet, India’s share in Bahamas’ imports, which totalled $2.8 billion in 2010, is a relatively minor 7.5 percent. Thus, this 1000 fold in 2 yrs is no-doubt an issue which demands criminal investigation.According to UNCTAD —The global trade and investments monitoring agency of UN— says, the number in no way matches the data on the Bahamas’ global imports, which, was $2.8 billion in 2010. There are more reasons to smell scam in these figures. The 29-island Bahamas have an economy not larger than $8 billion and a population of only 3,50,000.
These and other skyrocketing increase in ‘copper articles’ exports points that some black money might have been repatriated back to the country via ‘over-invoiced’ exports (done by billing high fake amounts for overseas transactions with fake buyers or shell companies) given that international scrutiny is increasing over unaccounted funds in Swiss bank accounts and other financial centres.It is clear that how India could continue achieving blistering rates of growth in exports (almost more than 50 percent each month) when the US and Europe, two top export destinations, are clearly in major financial trouble.
