There have been rumors that the Indian Rupee is being printed in China rather than in India.
The Centre has denied accusations that a Chinese company has been given a contract to print Indian currency.
A report by the South China Morning Post said that China is printing currencies for several nations including Nepal, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Brazil.
Liu Guisheng, Chairman of China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, wrote in an article in May in China Finance, a bi-monthly journal run by China’s central bank, that China obtained the first international commercial order for printing money from Nepal in 2015.
The Ministry of Finance, in a statement, said, “Reports about any Chinese currency printing corporation getting any orders for printing Indian currency notes are totally baseless.”
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Subash Chandra Garg, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, said “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 Government and RBI currency presses.”
An article in South China Morning Post titled, “Why other countries are giving China a license to print money”, has said that a Chinese state-owned company, China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, has been contracted to print currencies on the huge scale of international countries including that of India.
The report further said China is printing foreign currencies as Beijing seeks to increase its influence on the world economy and geopolitics.
“Since then, the company (China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation) had seized the opportunities brought by the initiative (Belt and Road Initiative) and successfully won contracts for currency production projects in a number of countries including Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, Brazil and Poland,” the South China Morning Post quoted president of a state-owned firm involved in printing Indian currency among several others.
According to the Chinese media reports, the state-owned firm won the bids of 100 rupees, 1,000 rupees and 5 rupees from Nepal, Liu said.
The ‘China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation’ confirmed that money production plants across the country were running at near full capacity to meet an unusually high quota set by the government this year, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. It said that most of the demand comes from participants in the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI).
The Congress and Aam Aadmi Party sought clarification from the Narendra Modi government at the Centre following a report published in the Chinese daily.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor asked Union minister Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal to clarify on the issue.
“If true, this has disturbing national security implications. Not to mention making it easier for Pak to counterfeit,” the Congress leader tweeted quoting another tweet carrying SCMP report.
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