'Indian currency not being printed in China', Economic Affairs Secy dismisses Chinese media report as baseless
A Chinese media report on Sunday clamed that a Chinese currency printing company has won the contracts for printing Indian currency, along with several other nations. Quoting 'multiple sources in the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation', South China Morning Post reported that the firm has “successfully won contracts for currency production projects in a number of countries including Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, Brazil and Poland".
The article claimed that 'China is printing foreign currencies on a massive scale as Beijing seeks to increase its influence on the world economy and geopolitics.'
The news created upheaval in India as several people questioned the authenticity of the news while others expressed grave concerns, if it was true.
The Secretary of Department of Economic Affairs on Monday cleared the air about the reports about Chinese currency printing corporation getting any orders for printing Indian currency notes. Subash Chandra Garg, Secretary of Department of Economic Affairs, “Reports about any Chinese currency printing corporation getting any orders for printing Indian currency notes are totally baseless.”
Moreover, Subash Chandra Garg added, “Indian currency notes are being and will be printed only in Indian government and RBI currency presses.”
The Chinese media report, published on August 12, claimed that the printing company received the first international order from Nepal in 2015 and since then it has added several other countries in the client list.
Most of the demand comes from participants in the “Belt and Road Initiative”, the paper said.
Liu Guisheng, president of the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, wrote an article in China Finance, a bi-monthly journal run by China’s central bank in May where he revealed that the company's business took off after Beijing launched the belt and road plan in 2013.
Two years later, China started printing 100-rupee notes for Nepal, Liu said.
Since then the company had “seized the opportunities brought by the initiative” and “successfully won contracts for currency production projects in a number of countries including Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, Brazil and Poland,” he said.
The ‘China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation’, headquartered in Beijing, describes itself as the world’s largest money printer by scale. With more than 18,000 employees, it runs more than 10 strictly guarded facilities for the production of paper notes and coins, the paper said.
“Our machines have been running at full steam for months,” the paper quoted an employee working at the facility as saying.
