Report claims China printing Indian currency, govt denies

The Centre denied accusations that a Chinese company has been granted a contract to print Indian currency.

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."

Subash Chandra Garg, secretary, Department of Economic Affairs told ANI, "Indian currency notes are being and will be printed only in Indian government and RBI currency presses."

A recent report had claimed that despite domestic currency demand being at its lowest, China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation has been "functioning at full capacity to deliver on international contracts".

The Delhi's Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government has demanded a clarification from the Centre after a report claiming that China was printing currency for other countries including India, was published in a Chinese daily.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national spokesperson Raghav Chadha termed the revelation as a "big threat to India's national security" and "financial sovereignty" and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi why this information was not available in the public domain.

The South China Morning Post, a Chinese financial news publication, has reported that a Chinese state-owned company, China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, has been contracted to print large quantities of international currencies including that of India.

The report states that in 2013, Beijing launched the belt and road plan which involved 60 countries from Asia, Europe and Africa to stimulate economic growth.

The President of the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, Liu Guisheng, was quoted as saying that his company has since then "successfully won contracts for currency production projects in a number of countries including Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, Brazil and Poland."

The report claims that despite domestic currency demand being at its lowest, China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation has been "functioning at full capacity to deliver on international contracts".

AAP's Chadha also questioned Centre's intentions behind demonetisation and making India, a cashless economy. Chadha went on to dub the Modi government's demonetisation move as "wasteful and dubious" in making India a cashless economy and said that similarly, the decision of outsourcing the printing of Indian notes to China is "counter-productive and dangerous."