Many leading entrepreneurs believe extensive money laundering takes place through formal banking channel, mainly under cover of imports.
Such siphoning of money-best known as capital flight in terms of economics-might be done mainly through capital machinery imports or such other imports by means of invoice manipulation.
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a leading private think tank in the country, unveiled such findings at a programme held on Monday at the CIRDAP auditorium in the city.
Earlier in 2014, the CPD had indicated the possibility of illicit financial outflow through import of capital machinery. And, in the meantime, there have been reports on large amounts of money from Bangladesh being stashed into foreign banks.
The Centre conducted a survey involving 60 leading entrepreneurs as respondents through a well-devised questionnaire. It was styled 'rapid business environment assessment survey'.
Based on the survey outcome, the think tank said some 62.5 per cent of the respondents believe that money laundering was taking place through the formal banking channels.
But the study stopped short of elaborating on what means the businesses follow to manage the banking system in taking the money out.
On a query, the policy research agency said this is actually just done on "perception basis".
"The respondents are leading entrepreneurs of the country. Their views are based on their perceptions," CPD fellow Towfiqul Islam Khan told the FE.
A major finding in the survey apprehended that the investment environment in the country could deteriorate further for some counter-productive factors.
Some 60.7 per cent respondents believe that the existing environment could deteriorate, and they identified five major reasons why.
These are: corruption in the public sector, inadequate infrastructure, inefficient government bureaucracy, government instability, and limited access to financing. The leading and established businesses were covered in the CPD survey, the Centre officials claimed.
Given the high interest on lending charged by the domestic banking sector, most of the survey respondents (53.5 per cent) supported allowing foreign loans for private investment to a great extent.
On a welcome note, the CPD said the central bank has started scrutinising bills of entry (BoE) received from commercial banks to unearth possible capital flight in the form of capital-machinery import.
jasimharoon@yahoo.com
