After reports of sharp increase in import of gold from Switzerland, Indian authorities have started investigating whether black money parked by Indians in Swiss banks is entering India in form of gold or not. The move follows the Modi government's action on bringng back Indian's unaccounted wealth.

Swiss authorities have started disclosing country wide import and exports of precious metals from this year and in 2014 from January to October, 380 tonnes of gold was exported from Switzerland to India and this was 27.7% of total gold export from there to India. In January 2014 India's share in total gold and silver exported from Switzerland was 14.1% which went up to 16% in 2014 so far. In gold alone India imports 27.7% of gold exported by Switzerland in 2014 which was only 15% in January.

Government has asked customs and the reserve bank of India to tally gold imported from Switzerland with export data released by swiss authorities and also march payment made from India for gold to banks, traders in Switzerland. Informed source said that if both the above equations tally then one can safely conclude that there is no direct relation between gold imported from Switzerland in India and black money parked there, however, "we believe even if the black money parked there is entering India via gold import then that will not come directly from Switzerland but importers will route that through Hong Kong of Dubai to hide real identity."

However during 2014 so far Hong Kong's share in gold import from Switzerland was 41% which was 44.3% in January 2014. This means, direct import of gold by India from Switzerland has increased in the past few months.

A veteran Bullion analyst said, "whatever black money was to enter India via gold from Switzerland has already entered India in 2013 when during UPA regime Supreme Court started handling issue of swiss bank account by Indians."

Source:business-standard.com