Illustrative image (Source: Freemalaysiatoday.com)The online newspaper cited areport of the Washington D.C.-based research and advisory organisation GlobalFinancial Integrity (GFI) as saying that illicit financial outflows fromMalaysia were estimated at 8-12 percent of the total trade of about 3.6trillion USD during the period.
In 2014 alone, the value amountedto 26.6 – 44.3 billion USD.
Meanwhile, the illicit financialinflows into Malaysia were estimated at between 8 and 13 percent of the totaltrade from 2005-2014, which translated to between about 287 billion USD and 466billion USD, mostly due to fraudulent trade misinvoicing.
According to the GFI, the totalillicit financial flows, including outflows and inflows, grew at an averagerate of between 8.5 percent and 10.1 percent a year over the ten-year period.
The GFI recommended thatgovernments, including policymakers, require multinational companies topublicly disclose their revenues, profits, losses, sales, taxes, subsidiariesand salary levels.
In order to curtail trademisinvoicing, customs agencies should treat trade transactions involving taxhavens with the highest level of scrutiny and closely track real-time worldmarket pricing.-VNA
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