Financial Transparency Coalition

For the first time, the Task Force Regional Representatives delivered specific recommendations to the BRICS governments, which met in South Africa this week. The BRICS countries hold a unique position among developing countries and emerging markets: they suffer from the same persistent problems relating to international taxation, transfer pricing, exchange of information, and tax evasion and avoidance that affect the rest of the developing world, but unlike many developing countries, hold significant power and influence at the international institutions and fora. All five BRICS are members of the G20, and Russia holds the Presidency this year.

BEIJING - The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has the potential to play a greater role in improving extractive company transparency and disclosure and build on its existing social responsibility and corporate governance measures, said Global Witness and Syntao in a new report published today.

Global Financial Integrity's new report, Illicit Financial Flows from China and the Role of Trade Misinvoicing, was released yesterday. It found that China lost $3.79 trillion--an astonishingly high number--between 2000 and 2011 to illicit financial flows. In just 2011, China lost almost $600 billion. These outflows are the proceeds of crime, corruption, and tax evasion, and threaten Chinese social stability. The report first debuted exclusively in this week's issue of The Economist.

WASHINGTON, DC – The Chinese economy hemorrhaged US$3.79 trillion in illicit financial outflows from 2000 through 2011, according to a new report released today by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization. Amidst increased domestic concern over inequality and corruption, GFI’s study raises serious questions about the stability of the Chinese economy merely two weeks before the once-in-a-decade leadership transition.