Switzerland government was being pressurised by India to share all the information about the those Indians who had bank account in Swiss banks and thus expressed acceptance to sign the act on automatic sharing of information with Swiss. Arun Jaitley, finance minister conveyed this to Johann N Schneider-Ammann, Swiss Economic Affairs minister when he met him. Swiss government said that they will cooperate on this over some period of time if India gave more evidences regarding the stolen HSBC accounts was said by Mr Jaitley. Mr Ammann had previously told that Swiss would abide by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) regulations regarding black money matters and follow international standards on this, where he said it would take time, as they would follow the procedures laid down internationally. Ammann, who is in India on a 3 day trip had met Nirmala Sitharaman and Rajiv Pratap Rudy to discuss the bilateral trade between two nations. Sitaraman also discussed about the free trade agreement for which Swiss is a member in European Free Trade Association. He further said that there was negotiations going on between the nations on many issues like Intellectual Property Rights and data protection etc.
Many account holders have admitted to Indian government about them holding the accounts in Swiss and took that as evidence to go ahead with the process. Jaitley told reports that in the meeting held with Swiss they had requested the Swiss government to fasten the process of providing the details that India has requested. He further told that India and Switzerland were moving forward to sign an agreement to share the information based upon the evidence on HSBC stolen bank account details. He said that Switzerland has agreed to join hands with India to fight against the unaccounted money or black money and will be part of the nations who cooperate on automatic exchange of information. Swiss minister said that meeting with Indian ministers was very constructive and that Swiss was moving ahead to process the support to solve the issues brought before it by Indian government. When asked about the black money law that was being passed in Indi would it bring any change to Swiss banks Jaitley said that first we should understand the law and then talk about the procedures.
by Sushma Javare.
