Anti-money Laundering Work Lauded

The Government welcomes the international community's recognition of Hong Kong's efforts in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan made the remarks today as the Financial Action Task Force published the Mutual Evaluation Report of Hong Kong.

Mr Chan said the report reinforces Hong Kong’s reputation as an international financial centre that is safe and clean for doing business.

The report assessed the compliance and effectiveness of Hong Kong's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime against the international standards. It confirmed that Hong Kong has a strong legal foundation and effective system for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

The report noted that the system is particularly effective in the areas of risk identification, law enforcement, asset recovery, counter-terrorist financing and international co-operation.

Hong Kong's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime is assessed to be compliant and effective overall, making it the first jurisdiction in the Asia-Pacific region to have achieved an overall compliant result in the current round of the evaluation. 

The task force and the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering jointly conduct mutual evaluations to assess member jurisdictions' anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime against the international standards and publish reports on the outcomes.

The mutual evaluation on Hong Kong which lasted for over a year was undertaken by an assessment team comprising 10 experts from the two organisations.

Click here for the report.