--By TC Corespondent

 

Illicit financial flow from Nepal between 2002 and 2011 has reached an average of USD 805 million per year, a latest international report revealed. According to the US-based Global Financial Integrity (GIF), crime, corruption and tax evasion are the main reason for the illegal transfer of money from the country.  

 

The report entitled, “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2011” has ranked Nepal in the 66th position out of 144 countries. The latest publication is the third reportfrom the global watchdog regarding the illegal capital outflow from the developing nations. This year’s report marked the worsening situation of illegal outflow of money from the country. In 2008 and 2012, Nepal ranked 60th and 58th respectively. Nepal lost highest amount of money in 2009 and 2010 from crime, corruption, tax evasion and other dodgy businesses. In those two consecutive years, USD 1,552 million and USD 1885 million was taken out from the country illegally. However, in 2011, the amount dropped to USD 651 million, the report says. 

 

GFI evaluated and estimated the illicit financial flow across the international borders under two broad categories - Hot Money Narrow (HMN) and Gross Excluding Reversals (GER).” The first, HMN, looks at money that has disappeared from the balance of payments which is likely to represent kickbacks, bribery, and other forms of unrecorded wire transactions. HMN accounts for about 20.3% of estimated illicit financial flows,” informed the report adding,” The second, GER, looks at trade misinvoicing, a common method used by commercial entities for the cross-border movement of illegal money.” The report finds that developing countries lost USD 946.7 billion in illicit outflows in 2011, an increase of 13.7% over the USD 832.4 billion that flowed out of developing countries in 2010. The 2011 outflows are the highest on record over the decade. 

 

Similarly, developing countries lost USD 590.0 billion per annum on average through illicit outflows over the decade ending 2011.

 

Cumulatively, developing nations lost staggering USD 5.9 trillion worth of money to illicit outflows between 2002 and 2011. Asia accounted for 39.6% of total illicit flows from the developing world followed by developing Europe (21.5%), the Western Hemisphere (19.6%), the Middle East and North Africa (11.2%), and Sub-Saharan Africa (7.7%). “Illicit outflows averaged roughly 4.0% of GDP per year from all developing countries over the decade,” says the report. 

 

According to the report, China continued to lead the world in illicit outflows over the decade—losing USD 1.08 trillion from 2002-2011.Meanwhile, Russia ranked 2nd in the report,leading the world in 2011 with USD 191.1 billion in illegal capital flight. Similarly, India ranked 5th, losing USD 344 billion over the past decade. Mexico and Saudi Arabia were ranked 3rd and 4th respectively. In South Asia, Bhutan was the lowest ranking country (138th). After India, Bangladesh (47th) was the second country in the region facing the worsening situation of illicit financial flow. Afghanistan (86th), Sri Lanka (102nd), Pakistan (117th) and Maldives (123rd), meanwhile, performed relatively better in the region.