US eager to deepen cooperate on anti-corruption in India

The United States is eager to deepen its cooperation with India on anti-corruption issues, especially in the field of money laundering and terrorism financing, a top Obama Administration official has said.

"We are very eager to deepen our cooperation with the Indian government (on anti-corruption issues)," the Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs Lael Brainard told a group of Indian reporters yesterday when asked about the on-going popular anti-corruption movement in India.

"We have put forward a number of ways that we would be happy to do that including extending technical assistance," Brainard said in response to a question.

"We are looking forward during the discussions on Tuesday next week talking further about the challenges both sides are facing and some of the ways we work here to counter money laundering and terrorism financing.

"We are very eager to deepen co-operation in that area," said the top Treasury official ahead of the next week's India-US Economic Dialogue.

When asked if corruption in India would affect trade and investment in India, she said: "We know from a lot of research and economics that one of the key factors in explaining the health of the investment environment is how much transparency there is and how effective are safeguards against corruption."

"So generally speaking it is very beneficial for purpose of foreign direct investment, for purposes of domestic investment to be able to have an environment which is effective at combating corruption," she said.