According to a new report, the Indian economy lost about US $123 billion in black money during the time period between 2001 and 2010.

According to the latest report released by the Global Financial Integrity (GFI), India was the eighth largest victim of illicit financial outflow in the world. The report showed that China lost an astonishing US$ 2.74 trillion, ahead of Mexico with a loss of US$ 476 billion), Malaysia with USD 285 billion, Saudi Arabia with USD 201 billion, Russia with USD 152 billion, the Philippines with USD 138 billion and Nigeria with USD 129 billion during the previous decade from 2001 to 2010.

The report by the US-based research and advocacy firm titled, "Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2001-2010" showed that India was the only country in the South Asian region to be on the top 20 list of countries.

Dev Kar, GFI lead economist and co-author of the report said that the amount of US $123 billion is a massive amount for the country's economy to lose over the period and it has a consequences over the Indian citizens as the money could have been invested in education, healthcare r infrastructure.

"This is more than USD 100 billion which could have been used to invest in education, healthcare, and upgrade the nation's infrastructure. Perhaps last summer's electrical blackout would have been avoided if some of this money had remained in India and been used to invest in the nation's power grid," he said.