Sar Kheng Wants to Avoid Grey List Turnback
Sar Kheng presides over a meeting of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) on Anti-Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and Combating the Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Photo: Sar Kheng / Facebook
- By Teng Yalirozy
- April 4, 2023 11:45 AM
PHNOM PENH – Interior Minister Sar Kheng stressed the need to continue efforts to avoid being put back on the grey list of global money-laundering and terrorism-financing watchdog.
“Removal from this grey list is important for the national life, both economically and politically,” Sar Kheng said on April 3 during a meeting of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) on Anti-Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and Combating the Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
On Feb. 24, Cambodia was removed from the grey list of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) following the visit of a FATF team to the country in January to investigate the country's efforts to stop money laundering.
The fear of Sar Kheng to see Cambodia being once again under “increased monitoring” by the organization comes from recent history. The country had already been through such a path in the last decade.
While Cambodia was removed from FATF’s infamous grey list in 2015, it was added back in February 2019 after the organization identified strategic deficiencies in terms of combating money laundering.
But the regular updates of the list led financial experts to conclude, in August 2022, that the country had largely complied with 32 recommendations that FATF formalized, out of 40, paving the way to a grey list removal.
“NCC must continue its commitment to maintaining a better situation through joint responsibility,” Kheng said.
Being one of the NCC chairmen, Kheng also stressed that the Committee carried out its obligations relentlessly these past two years despite global and national disruptions like the COVID-19 outbreak, natural disasters, the organization of the commune elections, and of the ASEAN Summits.
During the meeting, the Governor of the National Bank of Cambodia and NCC’s Vice President Chea Chanto showed NCC’s work to prevent Cambodia from being added to the anti-money laundering grey list again.
In its annual report released in February, FATF said Cambodia had made significant progress to enhance the effectiveness of its anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures.
This met the commitments in its action plan regarding the strategic deficiencies that the FATF had identified in February 2019.
Cambodia, however, should continue to work with the intergovernmental organization Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) to sustain its improvements in its AML/CFT system, FATF advised.
The country also has a draft law on money laundering and terrorism financing which was approved on June, 27. The bill was passed in tandem with a draft law to combat the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
