Slash cost of remittances: India to tell G20 leaders - Indian Express

India will push for a reduction in the remittance costs of non-residents at the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Brisbane, Australia, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sherpa Suresh Prabhu on Thursday.

“Indians send maximum money back to their country. India is the single largest recipient of non-resident remittances. NRIs remit close to $70 billion, more than the Filipinos and the Chinese,” Prabhu told mediapersons.

Modi leaves for the ASEAN Summit to Myanmar on November 11 and will head to Brisbane from there. He is in Australia till November 18, and will reach out to the Indian diaspora in Sydney’s Allphones Arena.

The cost of remittances, at times, is as high as 10 per cent, Prabhu said.

“It’s an ethical, logical and economic issue. We are pushing for some understanding in the G20 that the cost should not be more than 5 per cent,” he said. India has been able to convince Saudi Arabia to reduce it to 3.5 per cent, he added.

The broader discussion at the G20 summit, however, would be to get the world economy grow by an additional 2 per cent over the next five years.

“India continues to grow rapidly and will contribute to global growth. Our economic growth will be higher than China’s in the next year-and-a-half,” Prabhu said.

He said India would push for redirecting global surpluses for infrastructure development. “This will not just help the global economy, but also countries that are investing…,” he added.

In discussions on energy, India will also seek a dialogue in gas markets, the Prime Minister’s aide said. “We don’t produce much gas, but its a relatively cleaner fuel,” he said, adding that the need today was for a change in the global energy mix, with increased focus on renewables.

“G20 represents 85 per cent of the global economy, and is the largest guzzler of energy. But India’s per capital consumption within G20 is one-twentieth of many others,” he pointed out.

India will also put forth its position on the need to have a new taxation regime for large companies operating in different locations – commonly referred to as the BEPS (base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) problem, Prabhu said.

The OECD had circulated a paper, and this issue, along with transfer pricing, has become more important in an increasingly connected world with companies which have global operations.