Mauritius has said that it will continue to help India in investigations related to all cases including on the 2G spectrum and alleged tax evasion.
The Commerce, Industry and Consumer Protection Minister of Mauritius, Mr Sayyad Abd-Al-CaderSayed-Hossen, said on Tuesday that, “We have welcomed investigations… We have done everything to help the Indian Government to investigate in cases it wished to investigate and we will continue to do so.”
He, however, added, “Our offshore jurisdiction is not at all rated a tax-haven contrary to a number of other countries. We have very stringent regulations in terms of banking...whether it is onshore or offshore. And some people would even say that our banking sector is over-regulated.”
He also said the outstanding issues regarding the revision of the India-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) would soon be resolved.
“There have been a lot of advantages (of DTAA), a win-win situation for both nations. There are certain things which have to be cleared. I have no doubts that there will be some formal cooperation that will continue and that will again result in a win-win situation,” Mr Hossen told reporters after meeting the Commerce, Industry and Textiles Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, here.
India has sought to ensure that there are no loopholes in the DTAA to prevent revenue leakage through alleged round-tripping and tax evasion.
Mauritius is the largest source of FDI into India with FDI inflows from Mauritius of $62.05 billion (or 40.67 per cent of the total FDI inflows) from April 2000 to November 2011.
Indian investments in Mauritius were $13.6 billion during April 2006-December 2011.